PAD Challenge Day 4

Today's dual prompt from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem with the title "100% _____", and (2) write a "blues" poem.

100% Poet Blues

Well, I’m a 100% poet, baby,

I write verses all the time,

Yes, I’m a 100% poet, darlin’,

I’m writin’ verses all the time.

You ask me why I do it –

well, there ain’t no reason or rhyme.

Well, I can write you a sonnet,

haiku, pantoum or villanelle,

Yeah, I’d love to write you a sonnet,

haiku, pantoum or villanelle,

but don’t ask me for a sestina,

‘cos I can’t write them so well.

I love to write about love, y’know,

like Shakespeare and all them guys.

Yes, I love to write about love, babe,

like Browning and all them guys.

So let me write a poem ‘bout you, baby,

an’ I’ll start by describin’ your eyes.

Well, your eyes are a constellation, baby –

that’s what they call a metaphor.

Yeah, your eyes are a constellation,

that’s what they call a metaphor.

I could write a thousand of ‘em for ya,

‘cos that’s what poetry is for.

Well, I’m a 100% poet, baby,

I don’t know if you give a damn,

yes, I’m a 100% poet, baby,

I don’t know if you give a damn,

but if you’re gonna get to know me

you’ll have to take me as iamb.

PAD Challenge Day 3

Today's dual prompt from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (a) write an apologetic and/or an unapologetic poem, (b) write an epithalamium (a poem to a bride, or more gernerally about a wedding). Here's my result:


A Day in July

I won’t apologize for the weather,
one of the hottest days of the summer.
I won’t apologize for the venue either,
a little chapel on campus, not some
cavernous cathedral. I won’t apologize
for our shoestring budget - the lack of a limo,
how we went to the reception in her dad’s
old Pontiac, with her friend from next door
as chauffeur. I have no regrets for the music
I stayed up all night to tape, despite a lack
of tunes you could dance to. I’m not sorry
for the snafus – forgetting the marriage license,
her reciting my vows in her nervousness.
I won’t even make excuses for the fact that
my fly was open through half of the reception.
All I know is the ends justify the means,
and looking back from a perspective
of thirty-eight years, the day couldn’t
have been more perfect.

Poem-a-Day Challenge Day 2

My dual prompts for today from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo 2012: (a) write a poem based on the song that was #1 the week your were born, and (b) write a poem about a visitor. The #1 song the week of my birth was "How High the Moon" by Les Paul and Mary Ford. (Paul was also known as an innovator of the electric guitar and recording techniques.)


How High the Moon

“Somewhere there’s music,
How faint the tune…”
Nancy Hamilton and Morgan Lewis,
as performed by Les Paul and Mary Ford

After I left you,
no one followed me home
but the moon, which now beams
full through my dark window
like a mocking visitor.

I want to play you
a song I wrote, and bounce it off
the surface of that haughty satellite,
reflecting waves to where you are.
It might ease the sting.

Thinking it’s worth a try,
I pull my Les Paul Gibson from its case,
plug in, pick and strum,
aiming toward the moon,
asking it to carry the tune.


I almost forgot about the other reason I maintain this blog: for personal updates and self-aggrandizement. So in that spirit:

I was very pleased to learn that my poetry will be appearing again in Robert Brewer's Poetic Asides column in an upcoming issue of Writer's Digest magazine (July/August, I think). I won a contest on his blog for my quatern entitled "Purple Heart".

On April 1, I attended the launch party for Volume 57 of US 1 Worksheets, an excellent poetry journal out of Princeton NJ. It's always a well-attended event with great poetry, camaraderie and goodies, and my poem from the journal, "Postcard to the Ex" was a big hit.

One more thing to cross off my bucket list: I went to see the Phillies in spring training in Florida during St. Patrick's Day weekend. My buddy Bill and I stayed at a hotel that is right on Tampa Bay (gorgeous view) and conveniently located about 15 minutes from the Phils' stadium in Clearwater. We saw three games (the Phillies won 2 of the 3) and had a swell time.

NaPoWriMo 2012

Happy National Poetry Month! Once again, I'm going to take up the poem-a-day challenge, but this year with a twist: I will be posting my daily poems right here. I thought it would be a good way to force this dusty old blog into action again. As always, I'll be following Robert Brewer's blog, Poetic Asides, but I will also be following Maureen Thorson's blog, NaPoWriMo 2012. This means I will have two writing prompts to work with each day, and my intent is - crazy as it sounds - to create one poem from both of them. Here, for example, is my first poem of the month, based on the dual prompts to write a triolet and to write a poem about communication. Submitted for your approval (as Rod Serling used to say), my communication triolet:

Incommunicado

I do not have a Facebook page.
My friends think I live in a cave.
I know we’re in the Info Age
but I don’t have a Facebook page.
Why do I spurn this social gauge?
Well, I think that I’m rather brave.
I do not have a Facebook page.
My friends think I live in a cave.


I'm already a day behind here, so God willing and the creek don't rise, I will try to post my April 2nd poem later today - after I write it, that is. Stay tuned!

(P.S. Actually, I really do have a Facebook page.)

Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway

I spent my holiday weekend (Jan. 16-19) attending the 19^th Annual Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway, sponsored by founder Peter Murphy and Richard Stockton College. This is my third trip to the conference, and as in the past, I had a thoroughly good time. It’s three days of writing workshops, special programs, readings, book sales, food, lodging, partying, and so forth. For the first eighteen years, the conference was held at the Grand Hotel in Cape May, a landmark that has seen better days. But this year it moved to a new venue, the Seaview, a historic hotel and golf resort that was recently bought and renovated by Stockton College. The rooms and facilities were very fine and luxurious, and the food was generally very good. It was such a frigid weekend that I didn’t venture out at all, but there was no need, because all my food and creature comforts were provided right there in the hotel.

The thrust of the weekend, at least for poets, is the ingenious writing prompts that Peter comes up with each year. We get our assignments on Saturday and Sunday morning, and have time to write until the afternoon workshops convene. I took Stephen Dunn’s and James Richardson’s workshops (same as I did two years ago) and as usual both were excellent. Stephen Dunn is not for the “thin-skinned” poet, because he often gives very frank critique. Some have called his style severe, even “brutal”, but I’ve never seen that from him. He’s a very wise man and I appreciated his comments on my poetry as well other wisdom he shared, and he’s quite approachable. Jim Richardson is just a very nice and laid-back guy, but he also has a lot to offer with critique. Both of them have impressive credentials: Dunn has won the Pulitzer Prize and a raft of other awards, and Richardson last year won the prestigious Jackson Prize and earned a National Book Award nomination. Having the opportunity to work with both of them is, as they say in the credit card commercials, priceless. In addition, there was a gallery tribute to Dunn sponsored by the Noyes Museum, featuring memorabilia from his career and an insight into his writing and revision process. (Anyone who thinks his critique “severe” should study these displays , because I came away from them realizing that he doesn’t offer any critique that he wouldn’t give to himself.) He also released a chapbook of short poems, Falling Backwards into the World, in conjunction with this year’s conference.

The rest of the conference was terrific too: I got a tutorial session with poet friend B.J. Ward, and took a third workshop run by another poet friend, Barbara Daniels. It was fun to see so many poets whom I know, and I made a few new friends as well. There were two evening open mic sessions, both of which were very good, as well as a talk by Nelson Johnson, author of Boardwalk Empire, the book about Atlantic City that was the basis for the hit HBO series. The weekend was capped off with an inspiring gospel choir to celebrate Dr. King’s Birthday. I came home with three new poems that I wrote, plus a bag full of books from the book sale, including Peter’s anthology of published poems that had been written for his prompts over the years, Challenges for the Delusional . I submitted three of my poems for the anthology and didn’t make the cut, but the list of poets that were included is quite impressive. All in all, it was a great weekend, and I came home feeling, as one of my poet friends described it, "blissfully exhausted". Thanks once again to Peter, his right-hand woman (daughter Amanda), and all the staff and faculty who made it possible.

Happy New Year!

It's been the usual hectic holiday season for us, capped off by an end-of-year road trip to Florida, in part to celebrate my youngest son's 16th birthday. We left the day after Christmas (my wife, my son, our international student, and I), and got a relatively late morning start, so traffic was quite heavy, especially in the the Washington/suburban VA area. Our objective was St. Augustine, normally a 14-hour drive, and we limped in just before 2:00 a.m to check in at the local Best Western. I could have slept on a concrete slab at that point, but our beds were quite comfortable and our rooms were clean. The next day we did some sightseeing at the old Spanish fort and the lighthouse museum, had a tasty lunch at a "Spanish bakery", and later headed to our resort unit at Sheraton Vistana in Orlando. Wednesday we took a day trip to Kennedy Space Center, Thursday was Disney (Magic Kingdom and Epcot) and Friday was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. Needless to say, being Christmas week and all, the parks were packed, and long waiting lines were the norm, but we had a good time nonetheless, especially the boys, who managed to ride most of the popular roller coasters in both parks. We also enjoyed a dinner/show package at Epcot, which included a meat-lover's buffet at the German Biergarten (complete with "oompah band"), a bombastic Christmas concert, and choice seating for the light-and-fireworks show at Epcot. New Year's Eve we spent the night in Florence, SC, in a very nice Country Inn and Suites, and went out to see the film "War Horse". (A bit overly sentimental in my opinion but still worth seeing.) The weather was fine for virtually the whole trip, though it was a bit chillier than normal in Florida the first couple of days. Traffic back home was much more forgiving than on the way down, and breaking it up into two more-or-less even driving days was much more civilized. It also helped that we rented a Town and Country minivan, to make the trip more comfortable for the boys as well as us. That baby was loaded, too: satellite radio, CD and DVD player, rear back-up camera and blind-spot indicators, automated everything, and decent gas mileage. We hated to turn it back in. It was a tiring but good trip. Our only real regret was not having enough time to head further south and visit my wife's relatives.

I received my copies of both the anthologies released in December that feature my poetry: The Best of the Barefoot Muse and Prompted. Both are now available on Amazon.com, and Prompted is now available as a Kindle e-book. I also learned that a haiku of mine was read on NPR in December. I had commented on an article on their website about traffic signs erected across New York City that feature creative graphics and messages written in haiku, so I suggested one of my own creation:

Don't push the red light -

cross streets aren't the best places

for chance encounters

Well, Scott Simon read it during the listener's mail segment of his program. You can hear it here: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/10/143497210/your-letters-traffic-signs-and-front-runners

I was thinking of all the best-of-2011 lists that come out around this time of the year, and started thinking of what I would list as the ten best, or at least the most important, events of my past year. It was kind of interesting to compile, and I suggest you try it too. Here's mine:

1. The Palm Beach Poetry Festival, and working with Jane Hirshfield

2. Son #3's graduation (Masters in linguistics from Georgetown U.)

3. Our son's friends Pat and Jenny's wedding

4. The above-mentioned Florida trip

5. The West Chester Poetry Conference, and working with Molly Peacock

6. Trips to Minnesota to take and bring home son #4 who went to four weeks of "Japanese immersion" camp - and our side trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

7. A long weekend getaway with the wife to a B&B in Cooperstown, NY and my first visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame

8. Son #4 in the high school musical (The Music Man)

9. Several poetry publications, including two poems in Writers Digest, two anthologies, and the above-mentioned haiku on NPR

10. My 60th birthday

Music: While we're on the subject of best-of lists, here's my annual Amazon Listmania list of my 30 favorite albums of 2011:

http://www.amazon.com/lm/R17M3P9AQWGNBQ/ref=cm_pdp_lm_title_1

If you're just curious about the top 10, they are:

1. build a rocket boys! - Elbow

2. So Beautiful or So What - Paul Simon

3. 21 - Adele

4. Slave Ambient - The War on Drugs

5. The Whole Love - Wilco

6. Metals - Feist

7. The Grand Theatre Vol. 2 - Old 97's

8. I Am Very Far - Okkervil River

9. Bloodless Coup - Bell X1

10. Within and Without - Washed Out

Poem of the Month:

Here's the one in The Best of the Barefoot Muse anthology, dedicated to my wonderful wife. (Thanks again to editor Anna Evans for including me in this fine collection.)

Your Missing Piece

Like a puzzle, you now feel incomplete,
afraid to let me see the angry scar
where it was sliced away like so much meat.
You wonder what is left, and what you are -

asymmetry that makes a restless night.
You worry I’ll no longer hold you close,
but you’re my source, my beacon of delight.
You’re, in my eyes, a pruned but perfect rose.

Reminding us of our mortality,
events like this can forge a stronger bond,
a love unfazed by stark reality,
that rides the rapids for a quiet pond.

The bottom line is, it was just a breast;
the best news is, we get to keep the rest.

Some Good Poetry News

1. Verse Wisconsin has accepted two of my poems, "Ghosts" and "Downsizing", for a future issue, probably next fall because of their seasonal subjects. I met the editor, Sarah Busse, at the West Chester Poetry Conference last summer and she's a fine person who runs a fine journal, which exists both in print and online. I'm happy to be part of it.

2. I just found out today that I have been accepted into a week-long intensive workshop run by poet and author Marge Piercy, next June on Cape Cod. I'm excited because she is one of my favorite contemporary poets. We may make a family vacation out of it, and she's one of my wife's favorite poets too, so maybe she'll get to meet her as well. I'm honored because only twelve people will be selected for the workshop.

3. My friend Anna Evans, who has worn several editor's hats, had to suspend her excellent online formal poetry journal The Barefoot Muse, but she just finished compiling a print anthology of the best of the journal, and my poem "Your Missing Piece" (a sonnet about my wife's breast cancer surgery) will appear in it. It promises to be a really good collection of poetry - here's the link if you are interested: http://www.barefootmuse.com/

4. My poem "Six-word Spoilers" appears in the January 2012 issue of Writer's Digest, in Robert Brewer's column "Poetic Asides". The poem is a series of short three-line poems called "hay(na)ku": the first line has one word, the second line two words, the third line three words. That's it. For space reasons, they printed only the first four stanzas of the eight in my poem, which was okay, since it's really a series of ha(nay)ku, but for the record, here's the whole thing:

Six-word Spoilers

Rosebud’s
Kane’s sled -
who’d have thought?

Vader
tells Luke:
“I’m your father.”

Norman
slashes folks
dressed as Mom.

Heston
finds ruined
Statue of Liberty.

Shrink,
Dr. Malcolm,
is a ghost.

Date-
night shocker -
Dil’s a man!

Devious
suspect – Verbal
is Keyser Soze.

What’s
Soylent Green?
Yuck! It’s people!

And here's a bonus poem. I just discovered a blog called The Sunday Whirl, where they do a weekly writing prompt based on "Wordle", a writing exercise where you're given a word bank and instructed to use as many of those words as you can in a poem. I love doing these kinds of prompts, and several of my friends from the Poetic Asides blog participate, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Here's my first attempt (the underlined words are from the word bank). Pardon the double-spacing - my settings suddenly got a little goofy and I didn't know how to fix them:

December

December, you subtle beast,

you corner us on the precipice

of winter before we have an inkling

of what's happening, then surprise us

one morning with vanilla-crusted ground

and trees laden with frosting.

You may wish us to tremble in awe,

but we won't genuflect to your power.

We're made of thicker bark than that.

We'll hunker down when real winter comes.

it's our mission to make the most of it -

a hot pot of tea on a trivet,

an amorous evening before the fire.