The Dilemma: writer style

Y'all know how I love challenges, right? Love them. Guess what's coming up in April? You know it, you love it, it's National Poetry Month! The challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to write a poem a day.

You know what else it is?

Camp NaNo.

What is a girl to do? WHAT IS A UNICORN TO DO?

Poetry

or Prose

POETRY OR PROSE

POETRY
OR
PROSE

WHAAAAAAAT SHOULD I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

#betweentwoworlds

Poem BOMB!

Tonight, while I was at The Center Project, where I volunteer, it was movie night. During a compelling episode, my friend Dani and I decided to go outside and poem-bomb the parking lot.

We did Elizabeth Bishop's One Art.

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant 

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

My friend, Dani, writing some stanzas

Dani, almost done with her stanzas

An-tici-pay-tion

Strike me down dead, I'm not a Rocky Horror fan. *GASP* *SHOCK* *HORROR* But this fit the moment.

It's April and 80F in the house. It's stifling. I'm suffering from some serious insomnia. I'm disgustingly excited about April starting. Honestly, it's just weird.

I can thank that bout of insomnia and excitement for the fact that I am awake to herald in National Poetry Month. Happy National Poetry Month, friends!

It still feels a little awkward. We have lost amazing poets in the last 12 months, the most recent being Adrienne Rich. I can tell you the moment I discovered AR. I was at the public library and I decided to sit down and check out the magazine section. I stumbled upon what I can only guess was some sort of feminist lit mag- don't ask me the name. It had names that I now recognize as strong feminist writers. I was flipping through the pages, and fell on a poem that I think had something to do with grapefruits.

Okay, so it's a vague memory, Okay, Okay. Either way, I read it over and tried to memorize it, but I didn't have a dime to make a copy and I couldn't check out the magazine. I loved it.

I won't go into AR's dubious theory about gender and relationships. As a poet, she was stunning. I found an article in The Nation, quoting Cheryl Walker, that described her body of work as follows:

This poetry is deadly serious, but it is not, like so much of women’s poetry in the past, death-enamored. For it is the poet’s appetite, her undeniable life force, which sustains these operations.

and it's really hit a chord with me. What a powerful thing to be able to communicate... what strength in that evocation.

Anyway.

I was also skimming through the poetry section of decomP magazine and found a poem that I wanted to share:

77   

Rusty William Porter

For too long/ I have looked up/ and into the sun

Searching for something/ that I can carry back.

But as the gods/ never are kind/ to those who steal their light

My eyes are now mute/ speaking no truth/ and telling no lies.

Hope you all have a lovely Monday.

We Hatchlings and a Poster

You all! Guess what came in the mail, today?

If you guessed my National Poetry Month poster, you guessed right! Creepy, but spot-on!

And now, a poem or something.

We Hatchlings

The pungent American
toad excretes his own
flavor of war, writhes

between two slimed hands;
But hold a ring-necked
snake, for the first time-

He is barely inches
but his scales are still
smooth to touch, to stroke.

He bit my pointer finger
with sliver fangs to fragile
to pierce young skin, too

new to do more than tell
me to fuck right off, then
he slid through the cracks
like a morning dream.