Day Eighteen

Happy third Monday in NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo, all!

Today’s featured participant is Whimsy Gizmo, where the dictionary poem for Day 17 relied on a poetry dictionary!

Our poet in translation today is Cote d’Ivoire’s Tanella Boni. Boni is a poet, novelist, and essayist, Boni is also a professor of philosophy. You can find two of her poems translated into English here, and a lengthy article about translating Ivorian poetry, including Boni’s, into English, here.

And now for our prompt (optional, as always)! Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates “the sound of home.” Think back to your childhood, and the figures of speech and particular ways of talking that the people around you used, and which you may not hear anymore. My grandfather and mother, in particular, used several phrases I’ve rarely heard any others say, and I also absorbed certain ways of talking living in Charleston, South Carolina that I don’t hear on a daily basis in Washington, DC. Coax your ear and your voice backwards, and write a poem that speaks the language of home, and not the language of adulthood, office, or work. Happy writing!