April Is National Poetry Month

Hello to all poets and poets in waiting. April is National Poetry Month and tomorrow (April 1) begins the annual Poem A Day Challenge at Writer's Digest. If you have ever felt the call to write poetry or if you have heard the whispers of the poetic muse perched on your shoulder, now is the time to put pen to paper or digits to keys. 

The Poem A Day Challenge is exactly that---write a poem each day for 30 days based on the daily prompts provided by Robert Lee Brewer on the Writer's Digest poem-a-day page. Here is a link to the guidelines for the challenge: 

(http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2011/03/01/2011AprilPADPoemADayChallengeGuidelines.aspx). You'll get the hang of it in no time. 

So, why bother? Well, apart from uncovering your poetic genius, you will end up with a pile of 30 poems at the end of the month, which is no small accomplishment. With any luck, a few will be really good and a few others will at least be a good start on the way toward something really good. Besides, it's not everyone who can honestly say they have written 30 poems in 30 days. 

Forget about those who say, "Who would want to?" Hey, it's a challenge and some people just simply aren't up to it. So, dust off the poetic cobwebs and let's get cracking. Robert Lee Brewer's first prompt will be available tomorrow morning and you have until midnight to wax poetic in response... and so on and so forth. Show us what you got unless, that is, you're averse to it....

Poem A Day For April 3 and April 4

Time got away from me before I could enter my poetic post from yesterday. But it was a good day, nonetheless, spent with our grandson's drumline at their final gathering of the season---the annual picnic. Those times don't come often and are their own reward. So, today's post includes the poems from both yesterday and today. And as it turns out, both seem quite a propos.

April 3: Our challenge for today was to "take the phrase "Partly (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and then write the poem."

Partly Written
By Bill Kirk

Some days the best we can hope for as writers
Is work partly written.

Try as we might, the words don’t seem to flow.
Maybe the muse has left us
In search of more fertile fields.
Maybe the intrusion of life gets in the way.
Or are some days simply more or less creative?

Yet on those days, is it not better to make the attempt
Than let the time we would spend writing,
Silently slip away unused?
Too bad if that happens.

So, write on, even if the work ends up
Only partly written.


April 4: "... write a history poem. This could mean a poem about your country's history, the history of an event or a tool, or even your own personal history."

On Making History
By Bill Kirk

With each passing day,
In our own way,
We make history.

Each of us carves out some small or large
Piece of meaning in time and space.
What did you do today to mark you place?

Did you simply wake up for breakfast
And wait for bedtime?
Or did you experience
A different kind of awakening---
Learning or contributing
Some certain thing or idea
To give meaning to life,
Your own or others?

With each passing day,
How well will you choose
To use it?

For the day’s relative length grows shorter—
A day in the life of a five year old
Seems much longer than my days
Three generations hence.
Why is that?

Perhaps it is the proportional share
An apparently shrinking
Twenty-four hour clock takes out
Of the increasing span of one’s life.

Until its end, that is.

And then we will no longer make history
In the doing of things;
But only in the affect
We may have had on others,
Through what we have done or left undone.

Either way,
With each passing day,
We make history….

Happiness Is A Book Cover

In the midst of being buried in the administrivia of book promotion, sometimes it's easy to forget how we got here in the first place---what it felt like to see the very first cover for that book that took years to finish, submit, revise, finish again and again and again and finally get accepted. So, for today, I'm remembering that moment and a few others like it when other book covers popped out or poems and articles got published or a manuscript finished second in a small writing contest.

In a way, I suppose it's a little like being in a runner's slump and getting an unexpected and very welcom burst of encouragement. It could come from a short but really good run or even from just seeing photos of an ultra-marathon that you have long had on your bucket list but have temporarily lost the vision....

So, here's to those moments and the memories of them that keep us putting one foot in front of the other or tapping at the keyboard or scribbling on small notepads in the dark at 3:00 a.m. when a fresh and very perishable idea pops into our drowsy semi-consciousness.

Some days a little boost is all it takes.

Here's To Memory Joggers, Whatever They May Be?

Times Not Forgotten
By Bill Kirk

It’s not that I remember everything, mind you.
But I’m often asked to recall things
Others have long forgotten.
Why is that, I wonder?
Is it a birth order thing?
Do first born siblings just happen
To get all the memories?
Somehow, I doubt it.

There have been a few things
I don’t seem to be able to recall.
But most of the time I’ve found
It’s not so much my not remembering.
Instead, it’s that I may not remember things
From another’s perspective.
Was the dress silk or chenille,
Above the knee or just below,
One bare shoulder or two?
Such details may matter to some
But to me it was just sexy and black
And, boy, could that dress move!

Alas, perhaps good memory is an affliction,
Like knowing too much for my own good
Or remembering things that shouldn’t be repeated—
At least not in polite company.
Perhaps I should conveniently “forget”
A few more things.

Reaching back, I suppose there are some things
I simply can’t remember, at least not consciously.
My mother swears I was speaking German
As well as English at age two,
With our German housekeeper
As my first linguistics tutor.
But to tell the truth, I can’t remember
That far back in either language.

So, I rely on others to tell the stories,
Each time perhaps a bit differently
Than the time before.
And, then, those stories themselves
Become part of the memories
That I just can’t seem to forget.

Wanted: Muse With Attitude

Author seeks ruthless muse who will accept no excuses and permit no distractions even it if means sitting there in front of the blank screen until something---anything---comes out. AKA: Muse With Attitude.

We've all been there from time to time. All of a sudden, as if through miraculous cloning of the clock, there appears a block of time before us where none was expected. Amidst the days which become filled with life in high speed, you find yourself gifted with time to write.

Who knows why these things happen? They just do. An appointment gets cancelled, the picnic gets rained out or the Room Mother calls to report the fifth grade class already has enough drivers for the field trip today.

Mostly, it's best not ask questions or something else might come along to fill the vaccuum. Just take it and relish in the possibilities: finally you can reconnect with the draft of the last chapter of your YA novel; you can continue your search for something that rhymes with gastrocnemius; and then there is the slush pile---faintly, then louder, you hear the bits and pieces of brilliant ideas in their half-formed states crying out for a word here, a strike-out there. "Oh, what a time we'll have," you think. Just you and your words like a potter at the wheel.

Were it only that easy. Walking with purpose on the way to the desk, you pass that lurking laundry basket which hasn't had an exposed bottom for days, nay weeks. That newspaper sure looks inviting. When was the last time you read the Obits anyway? Isn't it about time to replace the baking soda and wipe the "sticky" off the shelves in the fridge? And what about those flower bulbs? OMG, I haven't blogged in weeks.

What was I thinking? There's no time to write.

Fear not! The muse with attitude is on her way. She laughs at laundry piles---clean laundry is a sign of misplaced priorities. News? Way overrated, she says. Besides the Obits aren't going anywhere. Forget those bulbs, you had your chance last winter.

And blogs? Now, that's a nice deception. The ordinary muse might be tricked by seeing you sit down at the computer and attack the keyboard. Pretty impressive, what with all the key tickling, poking, tapping, and urgent back-spacing. But the muse with an attitude will bring that ruse to an end quickly and without mercy.

So, grab a fresh cup of java if you must. But make it snappy. Time's a wasting and your mc is waiting. Besides, the muse has already written your note: "Please excuse all the mess. Author is the subject of divine intervention. What's for dinner, you ask? We'll get back to you on that...."