Poetry Month Update

Okay, I decided I might post more often here this month - maybe not daily like l did last year, but often enough to share some of the poems I have written for Robert Brewer's Poetic Asides Poem-a-Day Challenge.  I am still also participating in the Tiferet Poem-a-thon to raise funds for that non-profit journal - see my prior blog post for more details. But to repeat, I ask you to consider sponsoring me in my poem-a-day quest over there by donating a small amount. My goal is to raise $100, and if I get 20 people to chip in $5 each (or ten people to give $10), then I'm there. So far I think I only have one donor . (Thank you, Sharon!)  Please visit my page over at Tiferet and click the "Sponsor a Poet" button. You can also read the poems I wrote for them on that page, some of which are variations on ones I wrote for Poetic Asides (or vice versa). Here's the link: http://tiferetjournal.com/april-2016-poem-a-thon/poems-by-bruce-niedt-2016/

I attended an excellent reading last night at Inkwood Books, a nice little independent book store in Haddonfield, NJ. The featured poet was Rocky Wilson, a popular and colorful figure from Camden NJ. You can read about him and see a short video on the Camden Courier Post website.  It was standing-room-only, and I got to see several poet friends I haven't seen in a while. I also read three poems from my new chapbook, Hits and Sacrifices, and got a very positive response which included interest in the book.

So here are some more of the poems I've written for Poetic Asides. (Don't forget to visit Tiferet Journal to see the rest of my April poems!) The first one is composed of song titles by Jimi Hendrix.

[Day 5 prompt: Write an "experienced" and/or "inexperienced" poem]

Are You Experienced?

Sitting here

in my red house

on the third stone from the sun,

watching the crosstown traffic,

in a purple haze

of manic depression,

pacing all along the watchtower,

I ask myself,

"Hey, Joe,

is this love or confusion?"

Please may this be love.

I don't live today,

but I'll wait till tomorrow

for that foxy lady

to set me on fire,

while the wind cries. "Mary,"

I will ask her,

"are you experienced?"

And she'll say, "Yes I am,

in voodoo, child."

[Day 7 prompt: Write a poem with the title "Urban ______"]

Urban Tanka

looking for breakfast
on a sub-freezing morning –
optimist squirrel

but he won’t find much outside
my refrigerator box

[Day 9: Write a "hideout" poem]

Hide and Seek

When she was a toddler,

she thought she could disappear,

so she just covered her eyes,

thinking if she couldn't see him

he couldn't see her.

Later, when she was three,

she always hid in the same spot,

and he would pretend to be stumped,

looking all around till he found her

in her favorite hiding place.

But soon she learned

to hide much better, to be stealthy,

always finding a different corner

in the bowels of the house,

especially when he came home drunk.