mapping the nest
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash Another poem from my forthcoming collection a woman made entirely of air (Dancing Girl Press, 2023). This is a NaPoWriMo effort! I wrote the first draft on April 13, 2020. It was first published, along with Cargo, in Tinderbox Poetry Journal in the fall of the same year. Forgive Me:... Continue Reading →
Photo by Stormseeker via Unsplash Things to Do with Silence The mouth of a well brims with silence.Quench your thirst, carry it forthwherever you go. The pathwill lead back to itsome distant tomorrow.Break your bread in silence.Words scatter like wind.Learn from the tree, its rootsgathering darkness, its branches—a harbor for birdsong and rain.Is silence a... Continue Reading →
Photo by Nikolay Loubet via Unsplash The first draft of this poem owes its existence to false alarm. What I initially believed to be a heart attack was soon diagnosed as magnesium deficiency and corrected. What could not be corrected was my mother's absence, whom I had lost the previous year. I was in deep... Continue Reading →
Photo by Ahmed Zayan via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show... Continue Reading →
Photo by Engin Akyurt via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem in which you muse on the gifts you received at birth — whether they are actual presents, like a teddy bear, or talents – like a good singing voice – or circumstances – like a kind older brother, as well as... Continue Reading →
Photo by Nathan Dumlao via Unsplash Today's prompt asks us "to write a concrete poem. Like acrostic poems, concrete poems are a favorite for grade-school writing assignments, so this may not be your first time at the concrete-poem rodeo. In brief, a concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way... Continue Reading →
Old wall in Malá Strana, Prague,April 22, 2022 Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things." (Full NaPoWriMo post available here.) I'm combining two prompts into one, since I was traveling last week and missed... Continue Reading →
Penelope Unraveling Her Web (1783-84) by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797) Today's prompt asks us "to write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that... Continue Reading →
Photo by Duncan Kidd via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that anthropomorphizes a kind of food. It could be a favorite food of yours, or maybe one you feel conflicted about. I feel conflicted about Black Forest Cake, for example. It always looks so pretty in a bakery window, and I want... Continue Reading →
Photo by Vincent van Zalinge via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem that starts with a command. It could be as uncomplicated as “Look,” as plaintive as “Come back,” or as silly as “Don’t you even think about putting that hot sauce in your hair.” Whatever command you choose, I hope you... Continue Reading →
Photo by Philip Weaver, Birmingham, 1964 Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem about a very large thing. It could be a mountain or a blue whale or a skyscraper or a planet or the various contenders for the honor of being the Biggest Ball of Twine. Whatever giant thing you choose, I hope this... Continue Reading →
Spring snow (April 1, Pully, Switzerland) Slowly coming out of hibernation, but will try to catch up with the missed prompts throughout the month. Today's prompt challenges us "to write a poem . . . in the form of a poetry prompt. If that sounds silly, well, maybe it is! But it’s not without precedent.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Joanne Francis via Unsplash Passage First published in The Hunger, Issue 8, Spring 2020
Photo by Lora Ninova via Unsplash The first draft of this poem was written in the spring of 2018, during NaPoWriMo. Grateful to Maureen Thorson for her Day 18 prompt (and all the other prompts). Nothing Left to Do You must forget what came before,how really there was no cloudof mosquitos that night, only a... Continue Reading →
Photo by Johannes Plenio via Unsplash Today's prompt challenges us to "read a few poems from Spoon River Anthology, and then write your own poem in the form of a monologue delivered by someone who is dead. Not a famous person, necessarily – perhaps a remembered acquaintance from your childhood, like the gentleman who ran the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Frances Gunn via Unsplash Mandala I am glued to the interior of my thoughts. A shredded ballerina figurine dipped in gold. Trees, water, sky. Autumn. Spring. Autumn. ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Romana Iorga some things to watch out for in a poem something big something small something with wings something hungry or sated something that doesn’t know what it wants to die to... Continue Reading →
Photo by Kalle Kortelainen via Unsplash The Shape of Her Body in the Snow Do I exist if I doubt? How do my newly-shaped limbs come into being? I must be here, anchoredin the movement . of falling snow. Doubts float over my liquid . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by George Hiles via Unsplash Thief This morningI steal awaya moment.I hold it tight in my palm,as it stretchesits limbs into my flesh —a sleepy rabbit.I watch itskip across the thresholdinto fresh snow,leave no marks on the page, exceptfor the shadowof a slightlysmallertruth. First published in Moria, Issue 5, Spring 2020
Photo by Tomas Robertson via Unsplash The Meadow Is Filled with Stones White stones, flat or round. Some of them boulders, some small enoughto fit in my fist—the instrument of a perfect murder. Blunt, faceless. If I kill and let the stone fallin this field, who’d ever find it? …There’s a farmhouse at the edgeof a Romanian village, lonely and thickwith shadows... Continue Reading →
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash . Birth . For my grandmother She walked to the door: small, viscous steps. The apron tightened over her swollen belly. She called the virgin’s tender name and it came... Continue Reading →
Photo by Wendy Scofield via Unsplash . Our daily prompt asks us to “make use of today’s resource. Find a poem in a language that you don’t know, and perform a “homophonic translation” on it. What does that mean? Well, it means to try to translate the poem simply based on how it sounds. You may not wind... Continue Reading →
Today’s prompt challenges us to “write a poem based on a “walking archive.” What’s that? Well, it’s when you go on a walk and gather up interesting thing – a flower, a strange piece of bark, a rock. This then becomes your “walking archive” – the physical instantiation of your walk. If you’re unable to... Continue Reading →
Photo by Matthew T. Rader via Unsplash . Today's prompt invites us “to think about your own inspirations and forebears (whether literary or otherwise). Specifically, I challenge you today to write a poem that deals with the poems, poets, and other people who inspired you to write poems. These could be poems/poets/people that you strive to be like,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Carl Newton via Unsplash . “There’s a pithy phrase attributed to T.S. Eliot: “Good poets borrow; great poets steal.” (He actually said something a bit different, and phrased it a bit more pompously – after all, this is T.S. Eliot we’re talking about). Nonetheless, our optional prompt for today (developed by Rachel McKibbens, who is well-known for her imaginative and... Continue Reading →
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash . Today’s prompt “is based on the concept of the language of flowers. Have you ever heard, for example, that yellow roses stand for friendship, white roses for innocence, and red roses for love? Well, there are as many potential meanings for flowers as there are flowers. The Victorians were particularly ga-ga for... Continue Reading →
Photo by Max Kukurudziak via Unsplash . Today’s prompt challenges us to “write a “concrete” poem – a poem in which the lines and words are organized to take a shape that reflects in some way the theme of the poem. This might seem like a very modernist idea, but poets have been writing concrete poems since the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Juan Davila via Unsplash : Silence at Dawn : The lake wasn’t deep. We pushed the boat out and watched it take on water. You drank and drank and drank. The taste, you said, an afterthought, a bruise. I wish you had let me drink, too. Later, the upended flask. The snake... Continue Reading →
Photo by Hannah Tims via Unsplash : morning : fitful sleep and the echo . of footfall down the hall the scarf of a dream lingers . in the room wafts off as the eyes open to see what happened behind closed . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Julian Lozano via Unsplash : On the Bus : I wait to get home. The bus keeps on its route. Shadow buildings bow in the rain. The driver recites in staccato names of streets, names of people, years of passengers’ births and deaths. Each street grows its people. They ripen and wait to... Continue Reading →
Photo by Jeremy Bishop via Unsplash : The Fig Tree : We walk down the path with our children. Dust rises behind us like smoke. The ground is littered with figs: small purple bodies burst open to show their red seeds. Foreignness blooms quietly inside their wounds. All these years I wished to be whole,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi via Unsplash : Genesis : I walk slowly with my father. . We match our steps . to the tick of the clock. I walk slowly with my daddy. . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Cathaleen Curtiss : Spring : The water ran black in the mornings. . The soil had plenty to say . after being silent for so long. . It wasn’t even... Continue Reading →
Photo by Laurence Demaison : That Poem You Wrote : : is only half of something unsaid hold it next to the mirror : so that it looks whole do you... Continue Reading →
Photo by Federico Bottos via Unsplash : The Photograph : It doesn’t matter what we should have argued about. Talking was something we couldn’t or wouldn’t do. We walked through a meadow instead, you slightly ahead and I taking pictures of things I wanted to remember, including that bloody sunset. The flowers parted before... Continue Reading →
Photo by Denys Argyriou via Unsplash : This bruised shadow of a promise : This bruised shadow . of a promise. I made it. It was meant . ... Continue Reading →
Leonora Carrington Self-Portrait: The Inn of the Dawn Horse : Family Lore : 1. Wrath During lightning storms, my father rows out to sea. The villagers hide behind closed shutters, while the man they once hated lures the thunderclouds away from the shore. From the hill tower, my siblings and I watch the fireworks:... Continue Reading →
Vincent Van Gogh Enclosed Field in the Rain : Conversation : It’s frivolous, this rain, with its . unreasonable claims . on our silence. You stalk the hallway, I crush . tears in my fist.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Neslihan Gunaydin via Unsplash : The Rose : This hand that holds the trowel, a rubber glove to hide thick-knuckled, restless fingers— you know it’s yours. Yours, also, the knobby knees, the narrow feet in muddy crocs, the loosened skin holding it all together—who knows however long? You are a waterfall of flesh and... Continue Reading →
Félix Vallotton La Valse : Death As a New Language : You learn to speak it sooner or later. Sooner or later you succumb to its charm, ready to waltz as it leads you across dimly lit floors. Slender flutes of champagne flash their similes from darkened mirrors. People are gathered by the walls,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Hilthart Pedersen via Unsplash : Compromise : A flask empty of wine on the table. The table wanting for food in a house missing its people. Things are meant to be filled with other things. The sky, empty of birds, has clouds, at least. They carry no rain. Far below, the earth... Continue Reading →
Photo by Taylor Ann Wright via Unsplash : Count Your Blessings : Sneer, counting the moments touched by joy, the ones currently marching like mad across your front lawn. You clearly see them for what they are—frauds, counterfeit, foolish impostors, because, let’s be real, no way in hell do you deserve what brushed by with... Continue Reading →
Photo by Gaelle Marcel via Unsplash :: Amnesia : 1. We’re alone on the brink of this tabletop. . We rub air between our palms, sweat . between our bellies. . Our voices drop like ripe fruit.... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of incandescenttarrot.com : The Fool : The fool pauses on the precipice of a word. He surveys the great blue. It’s cloudy today. Perhaps tomorrow he’ll write a poem about flying. Today must be rooted in dirt. Step after step after step, the fool descends. It’s been eons since he left the summit.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Fabrizio Conti via Unsplash Rites of Passage : I The rock was thrown as a joke, a sleight of hand. Then, the bursting eye, the entrails- like stuff pouring out. I knew it was an eye, but it looked like an unhatched egg, the embryo throbbing with its own hunger for life. It... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tom Barett via Unsplash : Room with a View : All I can see out the window is your absence trimming the landscape. : First published in One Sentence Poems, September 2018
Photo by Fabrice Villard via Unsplash : Winter : A woman writes a line in the snow and leaves. Nothing else is new in that quiet field. Large snowflakes seal in her words, an envelope, closing. Next summer, she won't remember what she has written, or why. In the wake of retreating steps, silence keeps the... Continue Reading →
clayandbranches 