PAD Day 12: Loneliness and the City

Today's Poetic Asides prompt is to write a "city" poem. NaPoWriMo's prompt is a little more involved: Take a common “concrete” noun, like “dog” or “desk” or “lemon”, and use a search engine or other method to find references to that word, then substitute an abstract noun, like “love” or “sorrow” or “freedom” for that word and base a poem on the results. Per the first prompt, I used “city” as my concrete noun and “loneliness” as the abstract one, and what happened was this slightly strange “found poem” based on a fascinating newspaper article ("A Physicist Solves the City" - Jonah Lehrer, New York Times,Dec. 17, 2010).   I’m still paring it down, but here is what is looks like so far:

A Physicist Solves Loneliness

Arguments over the details of crustaceans
were a sure sign that it was time to move on,
so I began to think seriously about loneliness.
I had this hunch that there was something more,
that loneliness was shaped by a set of hidden laws.
I can take these laws and make precise predictions
about the number of violent crimes
and the surface area of roads to loneliness in Japan.
I bought a thick and expensive almanac
featuring the provincial loneliness of China.
New York isn’t just more loneliness.
It’s a former Dutch fur-trading settlement,
the center of the finance industry,
and home to the Yankees.

After analyzing the first sets of loneliness data —
we began infrastructure and consumption statistics —
we concluded that loneliness looks a lot like an elephant.
Like an elephant, loneliness becomes more efficient
as its gets bigger.

When you look at some of this fast-growing loneliness,
it looks like a tumor on the landscape. The concept
of loneliness spread for an entirely different reason.
Modern loneliness is the real center of sustainability.
Creating a more sustainable society will require
our big loneliness to get even bigger.

Why, then, do we put up with the indignities
of loneliness? If you ask people why they move
to loneliness, they always give the same reasons.
Loneliness is all about the people, not the infrastructure.
All successful loneliness is a little uncomfortable.
Loneliness is one of the single most important inventions
in human history. Loneliness is an unruly place,
largely immune to the desires of politicians and planners.

Loneliness is not as a mass of buildings
but rather a vessel of empty spaces.
Loneliness isn’t a skyline — it is a dance.
Loneliness can’t be managed,
and that’s what keeps it so vibrant.
There are few planned meetings,
just lots of unplanned conversations.
It’s just these insane masses of people,
bumping into each other and maybe
sharing an idea or two. It’s the freedom
of loneliness that keeps them alive.

PAD Day 11: Wine, Women, and... Poetry

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a poem whose title is a statement, then respond to that statement in your poem, and (2) write an "Anacreonic" poem; that is, one about wine and love.  Anacreon was an ancient Greek poet who loved to write about those two subjects, and though prompt #2 doesn't require it, I tried to write my poem more or less in the form he used, or at least, the form of the English translations. ( Fun fact: Did you know that "The Star-Spangled Banner" was based on an old English drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven"?)  My "statement title" is a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson.  So here's my light verse for today:

Wine is Bottled Poetry

Wine is bottled poetry

said Stevenson, and now says me.

I can woo you with my rhymes,

but wine assures us both good times.

Join me in the meadow, lass -

We'll read my works and raise a glass.

I think that a rondelet

complements a chardonnay.

Or let's try a villanelle

with a zesty zinfandel.

You might prefer to sip merlot

while I read you my rondeau.

Then I'll share with you a sonnet -

just don't spill your claret on it.

A limerick, my last resort,

will go quite well with tawny port.

I'll read my verse if you will hear it,

but take it with the proper spirit.

PAD Day 10: The Future is Now!

I'm late today - I don't know why two relatively simple prompts gave me so much trouble, but it's taken all day to come up with something worthy of posting. First, though, a couple of shout-outs to follow bloggers who are participating in daily writing prompt challenges: Vince Gotera's blog  The Man with the Blue Guitar (I especially like his Day 9 poem which used my "playlist" poem prompt that I suggested for NaPoWriMo, to create an entertaining poem in the "hay(na)ku" form), and Joseph Harker's naming constellations, whose link you can find in my sidebar.

Anyway, the dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "future" poem, and (2) write an "advertising" poem.  The latter can be a poem in the form of an advertisement or one about advertising. My reference to that prompt is rather peripheral, and I don't think it's my best poem so far this month, but for what it's worth, here ya go:

The World of Tomorrow

Now that we have arrived in the future,

it doesn't look much like we imagined it

in all those old advertisements

and Popular Science magazine covers.

We have no flying cars. Folks don't zip

around the city in pneumatic tubes.

There are no condos on the moon.

And from here on, the world of tomorrow

may look much like today, depending

on how close your "tomorrow" is.

We can't expect a sea change of technology

overnight.  Yet every day we see ads

that tell us the future is already here:

little robots that clean our floors,

wristwatch-sized smart phones,

and soon, cars that drive themselves.

Moving through it all day by day,

our progress seems incremental,

yet looking back at all those predictions

from decades ago, we got some of it right,

and looking forward, we can only imagine.

PAD Day 9: Gimme Shelter

I just got the new issue of US 1 Worksheets, an annual poetry journal published by the US 1 Poets Cooperative, a long-running group out of Princeton, NJ. They always have a great launch party in the spring, but unfortunately, other family obigations made it impossible for me to go this year. The journal is great as always, and it contains my poem, "Interview with a Metaphor." I've had several poems pubished there over the years, including "Postcard to the Ex", which they nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012. Thanks to Nancy Scott and everyone else who do such a swell job on this handsome publication that's always jam-packed with fine poetry.

Today's prompt from Poetic Asides is to write a "shelter" poem. As you'll see, I took that prompt rather literally. NaPoWriMo's prompt is one I suggested the other day to blog-mistress Maureen Thorson, and it's one of my favorites: Take a random song list (from your mp3 player, CD player, favorite radio station, Spotify or Pandora, etc.) and use the titles of the next five songs in a poem, in any way you wish. I find this a great "fall-back" prompt when I'm stuck for something to write. (Thanks, Maureen!) So here's my "shelter-playlist" poem:


Shelter

It’s to keep our family safe, my dad says.
I don’t understand why we need another basement.
Mom buys 50 cans of vegetables, hoarding it for home.
Every day on TV they talk about the “Cold War”,
and it’s not even wintertime. Dad shows me the new room.
There’s just one door and no windows, and metal shelves
with cans of food, a transistor radio, blankets and flashlights.
There’s powdered milk and bottled water too.
I guess that means the milkman won’t leave bottles
on our porch if there’s a war. Sometimes I dream about war,
sometimes I dream of Willie Mays. Dad says I worry too much
for a little child. Walking home from school, I watch the sky.
Sometimes I wish I was born in a UFO.


[Playlist songs:
"Milkman" by EMA
"Sometimes I Dream of Willie Mays" by the Baseball Project
"Hoarding It for Home" by Mates of State
"Born in a UFO" by David Bowie
"Walking" by The Dodos
"Little Child" by the Beatles
Hmmm, I just realized I used six titles. I think "Hoarding it for Home" is the title that really suggested the fallout shelter theme.]

PAD Day 8: A Little Morbidity, Courtesy of Vallejo

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "violence" and/or "peaceful" poem, and (2) write a poem that is a reworking of a famous poem. The example that NaPoWriMo gave is the same poem I decided to use, just because it spoke to me so strongly. Plus, it already had a little element of violence built into it to satisfy the Poetic Asides prompt. (Here's the original poem.) Don't worry: this one is meant to be more satirical than prophetic.


Papers on Top of More Papers

(after “Black Stone Lying on a White Stone” by César Vallejo)

I will die in a cubicle, on a sunny day,
a day as ordinary as any other, maybe in autumn.
I will die in a cubicle in the middle of a project
probably on a Tuesday, a day much like today.

It might be a Wednesday, come to think of it.
I will think it’s writer’s cramp, but it will spread
up my arm to my brain, the neurons exploding
like fireworks, my tongue lolling in my mouth.

Poor Bruce. Worked all his life. Maybe we shouldn’t
have given him so much to do. Maybe we shouldn’t
have used that cat-o’-nine-tails on him so much.

There are no witnesses, just the vacation posters
tacked to the inside walls of my space. And it’s
a Tuesday or Wednesday, and it’s just begun to cloud up.

PAD Day 7: Self-Portrait by Way of 1973

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "self-portrait" poem, and (2) write a love poem to an inanimate object. I stretched the second prompt a bit and wrote a love poem, or sorts, to a year:

Love Song to 1973

O, momentous year
when I graduated college and married
the love of my life, entered grad school
and discovered the glories of Boston –
I’m listening to a soundtrack
of all the songs you brought me:
“You’re So Vain”, “Drift Away”,
“Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”.
Watergate and Vietnam were still
on our minds, All in the Family
a Sunday night necessity.
I gaze into the mirror and wonder
what happened to the 22-year-old
who was optimistic, still a little naïve,
on the upslope of his life adventure.
I have to look past the paunch,
the thinning hair and gray beard,
but when I hear Dark Side of the Moon
again, it’s a little easier to find him.

PAD Day 6 and Publication News

First of all, I just got confirmation that my untitled "somonka", a collaboration with Aussie poet Rosemary Nissen-Wade, is appearing in Robert Brewer's poetry column in the new issue of Writer's Digest (the May/June issue, I presume, because I haven't seen it yet.) This will be the fourth time I've appeared in print in his column.  Pretty cool. (A somonka is a two-verse tanka written in collaboration with another poet, where one writes the first verse and the other writes the second, often on a love-related theme.)

Today's dual prompts: (1) Poetic Asides - write a "night" poem.  (2) NaPoWriMo - the good old "look out your window" prompt: spend a few minutes at your window observing, and make a list of nouns, colors and verbs based on what you see, then make a poem from those lists. My result was a bit looser with the word list and a bit more literal with the observation, but here it is:

Harbinger

spring is late this year

nothing pink or yellow outside

but my neighbor's six-foot

inflatable Easter Bunny

which slowly and eerily

rises and falls from a hatched

and decorated egg

which we cannot even

ignore after dark

as it continues its creepy

slo-mo peek-a-boo

illuminated from within

come on, flowers

please come steal the show