Day Four

It’s the first weekend day in NaPoWriMo! Pat yourselves on the back for having made it through three poetry-writing weekdays.

Our featured participant today is: Bag of Anything, where the fourteener for Day Three has a mysterious but urgent quality, as though it were a speech given by a character in an ancient myth. I really enjoy the use of enjambment, which keeps the poes moving from line to line.

Yesterday, our featured resource was an app to assist in memorizing poems. The practice of reciting poems is enjoying a resurgence in schools, partly due to the great efforts of the Poetry Out Loud program, which organizes recitation contests. At their website, you’ll find teaching resources, tips on how to organize contests, tons of wonderful poems, and more.

And now for today’s prompt (optional, as always). Love poems are a staple of the poetry scene. It’s pretty hard to be a poet and not write a few – or a dozen – or maybe six books’ worth. But because so many love poems have been written, there are lots of clichés. Fill your poems with robins and hearts and flowers, and you’ll sound more like a greeting card than a bard. So today, I challenge you to write a “loveless” love poem. Don’t use the word love! And avoid the flowers and rainbows. And if you’re not in the mood for love? Well, the flip-side of the love poem – the break-up poem – is another staple of the poet’s repertoire. If that’s more your speed at present, try writing one of those, but again, avoid thunder, rain, and lines beginning with a plaintive “why”? Try to write a poem that expresses the feeling of love or lovelorn-ness without the traditional trappings you associate with the subject matter.

Happy writing!