PAD Challenge Day 16: Connecting with Famous Poets, and Some Light Verse

Every day on their blog this month, NaPoWriMo features a link to a poetry reading, either live or recorded, and today they featured former Poet Laureate and Pultizer Prize winner Ted Kooser. I was pleased because I like Kooser's work. He also recently started a Facebook page which he admiinsters personally, and he posts one of his new or recent poems there almost daily. The other day he posted a poem about cutting down a cedar tree in his yard. Coincidentally, I had written a poem a few years ago about pondering whether to cut down a cedar in my own yard. I posted it on his page, and though I don't know if he liked it (I hope he did), he responded by giving me advice on the tree. (He suggested I keep it.) He's a nice, down-to-earth, humble guy. My other famous poet news is that my friend Jane Hirshfield read my poem "Public Apology" that was on the Your Daily Poem website yesterday, and she thought it was "marvelous."

Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "city" poem, and (2) write a skeltonic verse, which is a rhyming light verse with loose meter and a rhyme scheme which repeats the rhyme as long as you want to, until you decide to switch to another rhyme at your whim. For instance, it could be like the one I wrote today: AAAAAAAABBBBBBCCCCCCAAAA. I've got a very busy weekend coming up starting today, so a silly verse that I could dash off was just the ticket for me. I have written skeltonic verse before - in fact one that I wrote for NaPoWriMo a few years ago (an ode to a skunk!) was featured as their poem of the day. So here's the new poem (pardon the language):

On 'Burban Street
 
I really like New York City
so praised in many a ditty
where the night lights are pretty
and the Broadway plays are witty
but the apartments are itty-bitty
and the streets are rather gritty
and the traffic is perfectly shitty
and the crime rate's such a pity
so I live out in the 'burbs
with perfect lawns and curbs

and very little that disturbs
and neighbors like Beths and Herbs
who could be Koreans or Serbs
but I may run out of verbs
to describe  the work on my yard
which makes some weekends hard
putting down seed and weed guard
and keeping my driveway tarred
but sometimes I'm just a bard
who won't write a greeting card
with a picture of a cute little kitty
I'll daydream like Walter Mitty
and write of the suburb and city
but if you don't like it - tough titty!

And here's the one I wrote for NaPoWriMo in 2017:

Ode-iferous 
 
Now what the hell?
What is that smell?
We know it well.
It’s really vile
and gross as bile,
and lasts a while
and spreads a mile.

You stripy ghost,
unwilling host
who reeks the most,
you lift your trunk
and spray your junk
at any punk
who gives you bunk,

then we must dunk
ourselves and sluice
tomato juice,
head to caboose,
to try and loose
the stink that’s in
our hair and skin.

You black-and-white
child of the night,
we will not fight
lest we lose sight
of your foul might,
and your alacrity
with unsatisfactory
things olfactory. 

Pepé Le Pew,
we don’t hate you,
but for now, adieu.
You do have spunk –
don’t  be in a funk,
or we’ll be sunk
and get a chunk
of eau de skunk.