Poem-a-day (PAD) Day 1

So here we go! Today's prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo are:
(1) write a reminiscence poem, and
(2) write a poem in the style of Kay Ryan.

Child with Cherry Tree

The cherry's early

this year. Global warming?

Who knows? Some subtle warning

in premature bloom?

I don't use it as a gauge

of climate change, or

warmer winters.

Instead, I use it as

a measure of your age.

I have an older photo -

eight years ago you toddled

to its shade, its limbs heavy

white with snowy flowers,

and you looked up, ready

to find the power

to reach its heady heights.

You've grown with it

and own the branches now.

You climb them fast

in record time

and chase the squirrels.

No room for girls up here,

you say. Oh, but I think

they'll find a way.

Watch This Space!

So, it's been a whole year since I've posted anything here. So much has happened - the birth of my second grandchild, an impending move, and a few vacations, not to mention some poetry news like my attendance at the West Chester Poetry Conference, a Columbus Day weekend workshop with Marge Piercy, and publication of a poem in the Spring issue of Rattle. But maybe I'll talk more about all that later. The reason I'm back is that National Poetry Month is about to start, and with it my annual Poem-a-day Challenge. I hope to get my poetic mojo back after several months of relative inactivity. I can make a number of hollow excuses why I haven't been writing, but I won't bore you with all that. Suffice to say that I hope a poem a day will scrape off the rust, and dust off the cobwebs. So please excuse me if the first couple of days' worth of poetry seems a little awkward. Once I get my groove back, I hope to produce something of merit.

For the tenth year in a row, I'll be participating in Robert Lee Brewer's Poem-a-day Challenge on his Poetic Asides blog. I have been a non-entity over there lately, but I was encouraged that he finally produced a "short list" of favorite poems from last year's challenge, and my poem "The Flute Remembers" was on it. Also, my poem "The Man Peeling Sweet Potatoes on Easter Morning", written for the challenge in 2015, was the poem recently published in Rattle.  I'll also be following NaPoWriMo.net, Maureen Thorson's blog that's only active each April, and features some pretty intriguing daily prompts. I often try to combine her and Robert's daily prompts into one poem just to challenge myself a little more. Last year I enjoyed participating in Tiferet Journal's Poem-a-thon, which also served as a fund raiser for their fine publication of spiritually-based poetry and prose, but I decided to skip it for this year. I just don't feel comfortable asking my friends and relations for donations two years in a row - maybe some other time.

Anyway, as in years past, I will be posting most of my poems for April on this very blog. I will also have links from my Facebook page. I hope you enjoy at least some of my poems in the coming month.

Another April, Another Poem-a-Day

So here's the final tally: 44 poems, most of which were written for Poetic Asides' Poem-a-Day Challenge and/or Tiferet Journal's Poem-a-thon. Only three were written outside of those two projects, and they were two limericks and a three-line tribute to Prince. Most days I submitted the same poem (or a version of the same poem) to both websites, combining their prompts into a "dual prompt" for the poem, but on eleven days I did write separate poems for each in response to their individual prompts. I think I might have raised the recommended sponsor donations total of $100 for Tiferet, which means I will get a copy of The Crafty Poet by poet acquaintance Diane Lockward (I've heard it's very good) and a year's subscription to Tiferet. I'm also told that at least one of my poems from this month will appear in a future issue of Tiferet. In case you still want to donate in my name, click here to link to my poetry and a button to get to the sponsor page.

In other news, I am about to begin a poetry workshop course at the Eilandarts Center in Merchantville, NJ. Here is the link for that announcement. If you are in the Camden County or Burlington County areas, you might want to consider registering - it will be fun!

Lastly, here are two more poems I wrote exclusively for Poetic Asides. The first is an "index" poem - the prompt was to write a poem with a title that begins with "Important" (Pardon my politics - I don't sound off that often.) The second prompt was to write a "haphazard" poem.  I used a haiku-like structure on this one.

Important, Self-

Abortions, punishing  women for, 301

Apprentice, The, 190, 193-195

Bankruptcies, financial, 78-79, 134-144, 230-239

                           moral, 100-101, 167, 205, 212-213, 300-301                                

Daughter, would date if she wasn’t, 330

Deal, Art of the, 67-68, 74-76, 110-111, 135, 156, 200-201, 234, 270-273

Important, self-, 11-13, 22-34,36, 40, 42-57, 60-79, 82, 84-110, 120-183, 200-335

Megalomania, definition, 1-335

Mexicans, drug dealers, 223, 227

                   rapists, 224, 226

Mexico, build a wall around, 222-225

                paying for wall, 225-226

Misogyny, definition, 1-335

Muslims, banning, 215-219, 300-305

Obama, Barack, See Birth Certificate

Seven-Eleven, See 9-11

Small Hands, See Penis

Steaks, Trump, 135-136, 200

Taj Mahal, Trump, 68, 83-85, 185-186

Towers, Trump, 135-136, 177, 201-202, 256, 274

University, Trump, 142-145, 213-216

War Hero, not a, See John McCain

Water, Trump, 173-174

Waterboarding, 302

                                and worse, 303-304

Whatever, blood coming out of her, See Kelly, Meghan

White Supremacists, See Endorsements

Woman’s Card, See Clinton, Hillary

Women, ugly, 35, 47, 68, 79, 101, 123, 144, 186, 200, 201, 213, 245, 267, 290, 302, 313, 321, 344

Haphazard

I cling to the belief that the haphazard and the hopscotch,

the creature that sips among many flowers,

may actually come up with something....

                                                                                - Brad Leithauser

We could talk about

monkeys and typewriters,

but that's so shopworn.

We could watch ants

on a hot summer sidewalk,

an organized swarm.

The butterfly flitters

at random, or so it seems -

he has favorites.

Nature's not random,

it progresses by numbers,

said Fibonacci.

Golden Ratio

in the chambered nautilus,

the sunflower's eye.

Pandemonium

is not as manifest

as we once thought.

There is a design,

a dance around the center,

that makes us wonder.

Poem-a-Day Update and Happy Birthday to Me!

OMG, I am 65 years old today. How could this have happened? Got my Medicare card and all.  I can't call myself "middle-aged" anymore - I am now officially "old".  Oh well - I hear that 65 is the new 55.

My wife and I just got back from a great "destination wedding" of sorts in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Her good friend and former work colleague has had two weddings in the past two years - first her son and now her daughter.  Both the ceremony and reception were at a local hotel, where many of us guest also stayed (we made a weekend of it and stayed two nights). The ceremony was beautiful and a family affair - her brother-in-law officiated, and his young son and daughter (from his previous marriage) were the best man and maid of honor. It was very cute. The reception was a lot of fun, and I danced more than I have in years. (I usually need at least three drinks to get on the dance floor and not give a damn how I look.) The bride's family also hosted a fire pit party the night before, and the night of the wedding, and treated everyone to breakfast the next morning. We even had time to spend an afternoon at Old Sturbridge Village, a re-creation of a New England rural town circa 1830. It was a fun weekend.

Anyway, on to poetry: I am excited because I got a gig to host an eight-week poetry workshop at a local arts center. And I'll get paid for it! I'm thinking up themes for each session, but I will focus on visual art and poetry, since there is a gallery where we will meet. I'm sure we'll be writing some "ekphrastic" poetry (that is, poetry inspired by a work of art).

I mentioned before that I had three poems accepted into the "Art of Poetry" project at the Hickory Art Museum in North Carolina. For the second time, one of those poems was featured on their website (click here).

I am still running my "poetry marathon", writing a poem a day to raise funds for Tiferet Journal. (See prior post.) If you'd like to read my poems and consider a donation, go to http://tiferetjournal.com/april-2016-poem-a-thon/poems-by-bruce-niedt-2016/
 - click the "sponsor a poet" button if you would like to donate. I'm almost at my $100 goal but just need that final push!

I've written 39 poems in 27 days, with three more days to go. Some of them were written for Poetic Asides, whose Poem-a-Day Challenge I have also been following dutifully, as I do every year. Here is one of them. The prompt was to write a "cool" and/or "uncool" poem:

What Goes Around… (A Double Limerick)

I always collected LPs,

but then came the dawn of CDs.

This new format digital

made me a bit fidget-al;

I got worse when they made MP3s.

Now vinyl has come back in fashion,

and hipsters collect it with passion.

Their needles all jog

to the new analog.

I’m cool again – I think I’ll cash-in!

Poem-a-Day Update and Three New Poems

Well, it's 17 days down, 13 to go, and I've written 25 poems in April, 18 of them for Tiferet Journal. I am still trying to get sponsors for this poetic marathon, and I have got three so far (thank you Sharon, Ina, and Brad & Melissa!) but I am still $65 short of my goal.  Please visit my designated website at Tiferet Journal (click here) to see the poems I've written for them so far, and thanks for your support!

I paid my first visit last week to a nice little venue called The Station in nearby Merchantville, NJ. It's a convereted train station which now houses a coffee shop and arts center. Matt and Nicole Eiland manage the arts end of it, and I went one evening to an open mic poetry reading hosted by Matt. The bad news was that I was one of two participants, not counting the host. The good news was that I had a really good time. Matt is a good poet but an even better singer-songwriter - I told him he reminds me a bit of Amos Lee, a local artist who's made it big in the adult-alternative music scene. The other person there said she was just listening, and has written poetry but wasn't ready to share it publicly yet, but Matt and I convinced her that if there was ever a time to "come out" with her poetry, it would be for an audience of two, so she read a poem, and it was good. I got to read several poems from my new chapbook and sold a copy of it too. And I will be speaking to Nicole this week about possibly starting a poetry workshop there.

As I said before, you can view my Tiferet poems on their web page, but I have also been writing poems for Poetic Asides. Sometimes I submit the same poem to both if the writing prompts blend well enough together. Other days I write two separate poems, so the ones I'm sharing on the blog were exclusively for Poetic Asides. There are three new ones to share this time:

The Five-Year-Old - A Limerick

Little Donnie would holler and shout,
On not getting his way, he would pout.
With his blocks, built a wall,
then he said, “Screw you all!”
Now he sits in a chair for time-out.

Haiku

after they turn off

all the landscaping machines

woodpecker drumming

Diner Date

First date with her, you'd think he'd realize

he did not make the best of first impressions:

"Hey, are you gonna eat all of those fries?"

His favorite diner, famed for apple pies

and chicken waffles, decor out of fashion -

first date with her, he might not realize

that she likes restaurants with suits and ties

required, where they don't blurt indiscretions

like, "Are you gonna eat all of those fries?"

Yet she enjoys it all, to her surprise -

the greasy food and chrome she doesn't question.

While dating him, she starts to realize

he's nice, so down-to-earth compared to guys

she's known, and then she makes this self-confession:

she doesn't mind if he eats all her fries.

Fast-forward fifteen years, and we surmise

it's still their favorite place, their love's not lessened.

First-born's with them, we come to realize:

"Hey, dad, you gonna eat all of those fries?"

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.

Happy Poetry Month Again!

Yes, it's April, and in the spring a (not-so-) young man's thoughts turn to... writing a poem a day!  This year I'm doing something different. I will try to keep up with Robert Brewer's Poetic Asides Poem-a-Day Challenge, as I always do, but more importantly, I am participating in Tiferet Journal's "Poem-a-thon", another daily poem challenge which is being run as a fund-raiser for the non-profit journal. Tiferet's mission is to convey a sense of spirituality (of any persuasion) through its poetry and prose. It's a highly-regarded journal that I admire (even though they haven't published me - yet), and I'm glad to help out. What I'm asking of my friends and family is to visit the Poem-a-thon page, find my bio, and click to make a donation. I suggest a contribution of $5 or more, which goes directly to the journal, and which will inspire me to write daily. I won't be posting poems here daily as i have done in past years; instead, you can read the poems I produced so far by clicking my name on the Poem-a-thon bio page, Thanks for your help!

Finally, my chapbook, Hits and Sacrifices, is out! I got my author's shipment about a week and a half ago, and to those of you who have pre-ordered it and have waited since early January, I have been assured that your copies are in the mail and should be arriving any time now. If you haven't ordered one yet, you can get it directly from Finishing Line Press or on Amazon.com.

I'm glad that April is here to rekindle my poetic production, nut I really need to start submitting more again. My third of three poems written for the Steve McCurry exhibit at the Hickory Art Museum in NC has been presented and put up with the photo that inspired it. The poem is called "Holi Day", and it may eventually end  up on the museum's website, just as my previous poem "The Yemeni Woman Votes" has been posted there.

I've been assisting my wife with a one-day conference for social workers that she has helped organize. She asked me to do a poetry workshop on gratitude, and I had some fair success leading two sessions. I'll be doing it again this week. I'm also looking at the possibility of doing a regular workshop at a local coffee house

Easter was a whirlwind of preparation and entertaining, and spring arrived here very early - my flowering trees (and everyone else's too) are about two or three weeks ahead of time. I saw my first robin of spring in February. (Global warming?)  My youngest son is in Japan for a semester of exchange study, and he is enjoying it immensely.

Poem: I think I'll share one of the poems I wrote for the Poetic Asides challenge:

Fool's Snow

Waking this morning to wind at my window

I rise to see white flakes whipping past.

I am shocked - snow in April? - but then realize

they are petals from my cherry tree

stripped from their blossoms to ride the air.

The cherries have bloomed weeks ahead

of what we consider their schedule,

thus all but ruining cherry tree festivals

all around the region.  I saw the first

robin of spring in February.

There is madness in the weather these days,

and Nature doesn't give a damn

about our preconceptions. If we do nothing,

predictions will be obsolete, and we fools

will be stripped from our trees in the wind.