Day Twenty-Six

Hello, everyone, and welcome back for the 26th day of NaPoWriMo and GloPoWriMo. Just a few days left to go!

Our featured participant for Day 26 is Writing Rochdale, where the poem for Day 25 takes its inspiration from Daniel Defoe.

Today’s poet in translation is the Netherlands’ Maarten van der Graaff, a very young poet who won the C. Buddingh’ Prize for the best Dutch-language debut collection in 2014, for his book Getawaycarpoems. He writes glossy, glassy, “beat”-like poems are filled with references to the internet and technological and dissociative aspects of contemporary life. Five of his poems can be found at the link above.

And last, but not least, our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates a call and response. Calls-and-responses are used in many sermons and hymns (and also in sea chanties!), in which the preacher or singer asks a question or makes an exclamation, and the audience responds with a specific, pre-determined response. (Think: Can I get an amen?, to which the response is AMEN!.). You might think of the response as a sort of refrain or chorus that comes up repeatedly, while the call can vary slightly each time it is used. Here’s a sea chanty example:

Haul on the bowline, our bully ship’s a rolling,
Haul on the bowline, the bowline Haul!

Haul on the bowline, Kitty is my darlin’,
Haul on the bowline, the bowline Haul!

Haul on the bowline, Kitty lives in Liverpool,
Haul on the bowline, the bowline Haul!

The call can be longer than the response, or vice versa. But think of your poem as an interactive exchange between one main speaker and an audience. Happy writing!