Day Twenty-Seven

Happy Wednesday, all, and welcome back for the twenty-seventh day of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant for the day is, again, two featured participants! While the poems may have seemed difficult to write, the responses to Day 27’s “homeric similes” prompt were really quite amazing. Pat yourselves on your collective backs — extended metaphors suit you down to the ground. And now, without further ado, our participants! First up, we have Vixie’s Stories, bringing the jungle into an urban setting. Second, we have Poetry by Hasen, bringing us a wintry and wandering simile.

Today’s featured online magazine is Wood Cat Review, a relatively new magazine that focuses on poetry and other forms of writing about the natural world. From the work that they have published so far, I’ll point you to William Doreski’s “Toads in Early Spring” and Christian Ward’s “The Judges of Wandle River.”

Last but not least, here’s our (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a “duplex.” A “duplex” is a variation on the sonnet, developed by the poet Jericho Brown. Here’s one of his first “Duplex” poems, and here is a duplex written by the poet I.S. Jones. Like a typical sonnet, a duplex has fourteen lines. It’s organized into seven, two-line stanzas. The second line of the first stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the second stanza, the second line of the second stanza is echoed by (but not identical to) the first line of the third stanza, and so on. The last line of the poem is the same as the first.

Happy writing!