Day Thirteen

Hello, all. Today is the thirteenth day of Na/GloPoWriMo, and it’s just as lucky as every day in which poetry gets written!

Our featured participant today is lady in the pines, where the haibun for Day Twelve gives this daughter of Minnesotans a taste of nostalgia!

Today, we bring you an interview with Brendan Lorber, whose first full-length book of poetry, If this is paradise why are we still driving?, will be published this spring by Subpress. Lorber’s poetry has appeared in journals including American Poetry Review, Fence, and McSweeney’s. He is the editor and publisher of Lungfull! Magazine, an annual anthology of contemporary literature that publishes rough drafts alongside contributors’ final work. You can read two of Lorber’s recent poems here, and our interview with him here.

And now for our prompt (optional, as always!), drawn from a suggestion provided in Lorber’s interview. Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which the words or meaning of a familiar phrase get up-ended. For example, if you chose the phrase “A stitch in time saves nine,” you might reverse that into something like: “a broken thread; I’m late, so many lost.” Or “It’s raining cats and dogs” might prompt the phrase “Snakes and lizards evaporate into the sky.” Those are both rather haunting, strange images, and exploring them could provide you with an equally haunting, strange poem (or a funny one!)

Happy writing!