Hello, everyone! Today we’re one-third of the way through NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo. Congratulations to everyone who is still going strong on their daily writing. And if you’ve fallen behind, no worries – there’s still plenty of time to catch up.

Our featured participant today is Whimsygizmo’s Blog, where the nine-line poem for Day Nine tells us how to capture the moon!

Today’s interview is with former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. She has written four books of poetry, including Native Guard, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007, and a book of creative non-fiction, Beyond Katrina. Trethewey’s work draws from both her own family history and the history of the Gulf Coast where she was born. You can find a selection of her poems here.

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that is a portrait of someone important to you. It doesn’t need to focus so much on what a person looks (or looked) like, as what they are or were. If you need inspiration, here’s one of my favorite portrait poems.

Happy writing!

Happy Sunday, everyone, and happy ninth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant for the day is Ordinary Average Thoughts, where the repetition poem for Day Eight completely cracked me up.

Today, our interview is with Thomas Lux. When he passed away earlier this year, he was the author of twenty books of poetry. Known for his sardonic verse (titles of his books include Pecked To Death By Swans and Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy), Lux taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, as well as in other writing programs around the country. You can read more about Lux here, and find examples of his poems here and here.

Finally, here is our prompt (optional, as always). Because today is the ninth day of NaPoWriMo, I’d like to challenge you to write a nine-line poem. Although the fourteen-line sonnet is often considered the “baseline” form of verse in English, Sir Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene using a nine-line form of his own devising, and poetry in other languages (French, most particularly) has always taken advantage of nine-line forms. You can find information of various ways of organizing rhyme schemes, meters, etcetera for nine-line works here. And of course, you can always eschew such conventions entirely, and opt to be a free-verse nine-line poet.

Happy writing!

Hello, all, and welcome back for the second week of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo!

Today, our featured participant is Summer Blues, where the fortuitous poem for Day Seven is full of mystery.

Our interviewee for the day is Dorothea Lasky. The interview we’ve linked came out at the same time as her first book, but since then, Lasky has published two additional books. You can find more on Lasky’s work and some of her poems here and a sampler of her early poems here.

And now for our (optional) prompt. Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that relies on repetition. It can be repetition of a phrase, or just a word. Need a couple of examples? Try “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe, or Joy Harjo’s “She Had Some Horses”. Poe’s poem creates a relentless, clanging effect through the repetition of the word “bells,” while Harjo’s repeated use of the phrase “she had some horses” and variations thereof gives her poem poem its incantatory effect, while also deepening its central philosophical conceit of what things are the same and what things are different.

Happy Writing!

Hello, everyone! Today marks one full week of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo. I hope you are settling into your poetry-writing groove.

Our featured participant today is Smoke words every day, where the multiple-viewpoints poem for Day Six could be called “Five Reasons to Put Down Your Phone Already.”

Today’s interview is with Li Young Lee. Lee’s first book of poetry, Rose, is a staple in creative writing courses. You can learn more about Lee here, and read a number of his poems here.

Finally, our prompt for the day (optional as always) comes to us from Elizabeth Boquet of Oaks to Acorns. In keeping with the fact that it’s the seventh day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo, Elizabeth and I challenge you to write a poem about luck and fortuitousness. For inspiration, take a look at Charles Simic’s “The Betrothal” and Stephen Dunn’s “The Arm”. Need something more? Perhaps these instructions from Elizabeth will get you going!

Create the following lists:

1. List 1 – 3 random objects. (Smaller tends to be better.)
2. List 1 – 3 random but specific locations. (Think in the cookie jar, or under my seat…)
3. List 1 – 2 objects you’ve lost and a few notes on their back-story.
4. List 1- 2 objects you’ve found and few notes on their back-story.

Now, choose an object from List 1, a location from List 2, and connect them in a poem with ideas from Lists 3 & 4 and Voilà! A fortuitous poem! As an example of a finished “fortuitous” poem, here is Elizabeth’s own “State of Grace”.

Happy writing!

Welcome back, everyone, to Day Six of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Today, our featured participant is Blymey Rhymies, where the Mary Oliver-inspired poem for Day Five reads a bit like Mary Oliver as reinterpreted by Edward Lear with a side of Lemony Snicket.

Today’s interview is with Alex Dimitrov, a Bulgarian-born poet living in New York. He’s the author of two books of poetry, most recently Together and by Ourselves, out in just a few days from Copper Canyon Press. You can read the title poem here and some more of Dimitrov’s work here.

And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that looks at the same thing from various points of view. The most famous poem of this type is probably Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”. You don’t need to have thirteen ways of looking at something – just a few will do!
Happy writing!

Happy Wednesday, everyone, and happy fifth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo!

Our featured participant for the day is Closed Captioned for the Thinking Impaired, where the enigma poem for Day Four is steeped in Greek myth and sassy questions.

Our interviewee today is Mary Oliver, as rather incongruously, to my mind, interviewed by Maria Shriver. I won’t bother to conceal from you the fact that I chose this interview in part for the picture, in which Ms. Oliver appears to be a tiny, birdlike gnome in contrast to the Amazonian Shriver. Be that as it may, Oliver is one of America’s most popular contemporary poets, known for plainspeaking poems that focus on the natural world. You can read more about Oliver here, and read some of her poems here.

Last but not least, here is our prompt for Day Five (as always, the prompt is optional). In honor of Mary Oliver’s work, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that is based in the natural world: it could be about a particular plant, animal, or a particular landscape. But it should be about a slice of the natural world that you have personally experienced and optimally, one that you have experienced often. Try to incorporate specific details while also stating why you find the chosen place or plant/animal meaningful.

Happy writing!

Hello, everyone! It’s the fourth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo, and also a Tuesday. Fun fact: it will be Tuesday all day today. That’s right: all day today, Tuesday.

Today’s featured participant is Katie Staten, whose elegy for her father-in-law is full of tender humor.

Our interview for the day is with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, one of the most important figures in the “beat” generation of poets, a great poet in his own right and also the publisher of many others through his influential City Lights press. You can learn more about Ferlinghetti here, and read some of his poems here.

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). One of the most popular British works of classical music is Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The “enigma” of the title is widely believed to be a hidden melody that is not actually played, but which is tucked somehow into the composition through counterpoint. Today I’d like you to take some inspiration from Elgar and write a poem with a secret – in other words, a poem with a word or idea or line that it isn’t expressing directly. The poem should function as a sort of riddle, but not necessarily a riddle of the “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” variety. You could choose a word, for example, “yellow,” and make everything in the poem something yellow, but never actually allude to their color. Or perhaps you could closely describe a famous physical location or person without ever mentioning what or who it actually is.

Happy writing!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Day Three of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo! It’s our first Monday this month, but I hope that won’t let that keep you from your writing.

Today’s featured participant is notes from a binbag, where the recipe poem for Day 2 has the spine-tingling feel of a dark fairy tale.

Today’s interview is with Monica de la Torre. Born in Mexico, de la Torre has lived in the U.S. since 1993 and has published four books of poetry. Her work is sly, witty, and playful, and often display narrative or essayistic characteristics. You can read some good examples here, here and here .

And now for our (optional) prompt! Today I’d like to challenge you to write an elegy – a poem that mourns or honors someone dead or something gone by. And I’d like to ask you to center the elegy on an unusual fact about the person or thing being mourned. For example, if you are writing an elegy about your grandfather, perhaps the poem could be centered around a signature phrase of his. (My own grandfather used to justify whatever he was doing by saying, “well, I can’t sing or dance, and it’s too wet to plow,” which baffled me considerably as a child). Or perhaps your Aunt Lily always unconsciously whistled between her teeth while engaged in her daily battle with the crossword puzzle. These types of details paradoxically breathe life into an elegy, making the mourned person real for the reader.

I suppose with a challenge like that, it’s a little odd to sign off for the day with “Happy writing!,” but let me wish you good writing, at least.

Hello again, everyone! It’s Day Two of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo. I hope your experience of Day One only whetted your appetite for more – because there is more (28 days more, to be exact).

Our featured participant today is Thoughts of Words, where the Kay Ryan prompt resulted in a closely-observed poem about a visiting crow.

Our interview today is with Dawn Lundy Martin, the author of three books of poetry. Martin’s work deals precisely, but with nuance, with the individual’s negotiation of everyday brutality, of life in a society that judges, controls, or extorts from each of us, often in ways that have nothing to do with our individuality, but with the roles we are slotted into. You can find more on Martin’s work, along with some of her poems, here, and another poem here.

And last but not least, here is our prompt (as always, optional). Today, I’d like you to write a poem inspired by, or in the form of, a recipe! It can be a recipe for something real, like your grandmother’s lemon chiffon cake, or for something imaginary, like a love potion or a spell.

Happy writing!

Welcome to Day One of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo!

As in past years, we’ll feature a participant each day and supply an optional prompt. We’ve also traditionally supplied an “extra” – a link to a journal accepting submissions, information on a poet writing other than in English, etc. This year, we’ll be rounding out the daily posts with a link to an interview with a poet.

And now, without further ado, our featured participant for Day One is Gloria Gonsalves. Gloria is a longtime NaPoWriMo participant, and her early-bird haibun has a wonderfully dreamlike quality, and a lovely punctuating haiku.

Today’s interview is with Kay Ryan, whose spare, tightly-rhymed work makes each poem a small, witty, philosophical puzzle. You can find more background on Ryan’s life and work here, and read one of her poems here.

And finally, our (optional) prompt. In honor of today’s interviewee, I’d like to challenge you to write a Kay-Ryan-esque poem: short, tight lines, rhymes interwoven throughout, maybe an animal or two, and, if you can manage to stuff it in, a sharp little philosophical conclusion.

Happy writing!