Happy Thursday, everyone, and happy twenty-seventh day of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Today, our featured participant is Veruugal, who brings us a moving elegy in response to Day 26’s “what’s in a name?” prompt. For a little more context, see the comment here.

As today’s featured resource, we have another duo of books written by Na/GloPoWriMoers, and featuring work first drafted during Na/GloPoWriMo. First, here’s Victoria Doerper’s What if We All Bloomed?: Poems of Nature, Love, and Aging, and next, Mirjana M’s Colour Me in Cayenne & Chlorine.

And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today, begin by reading Bernadette Mayer’s poem “The Lobelias of Fear.” Now write your own poem titled “The ________ of ________,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank is an abstract noun. The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.

Happy writing!

Welcome back for Day Twenty-Six of Na/GloPoWriMo, everybody.

Our featured participant for the day is Joe Hesch, where the love poem for Day 25 is full of dreamy, surreal similes.

And now, here’s a new pair of books published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring poems written during the yearly challenge. First up, we have longtime participant Gloria D. Gonsalves’ book Let’s Go Walking in the Storm, and next, Dawn Anderson’s book World Stamp-Poems. Both Gloria and Dawn actually have several poetry collections featuring work first written during Na/GloPoWriMo. Check out their websites to see more!

Our (optional) prompt for day asks you to write a portrait poem that focuses on or plays with the meaning of the subject’s name. This could be a self-portrait, a portrait of a family member or close friend, or even a portrait of a famous or historical person. If you need help delving into the meaning of your poem-subject’s name, this website may help.

Happy writing!

Happy 25^th day of Na/GloPoWriMo, all!

Today’s featured participant is Anna Enbom, who reminds us, in response to Day 24’s “review” prompt, that art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

As we close out our twentieth year, the featured resources for the next few days will take the form of books and chapbooks published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring work first drafted as part of the Na/GloPoWriMo challenge. First, up, we have Vince Gotera’s book The Coolest Month and Elizabeth Boquet’s collection of new and selected poems, Galoshes.

Last but not least, here’s our (optional) prompt for the day. Begin by reading e e cummings’ poem [somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond]. This is a pretty classic love poem, so well-known that it has spawned at least one silly meme. Today’s prompt challenges you to also write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.

Happy writing!

(Updated to fix the link to the cummings’ poem!)

Wow! I’m finding it hard to believe this, but as of today, there’s just a week left in Na/GloPoWriMo 2023.

Our featured participant today is Quest for Whirled Peas, where the response to Day 23’s multi-part poem prompt has a lovely, haiku-like sense of present-ness.:

Today, our daily resource is this very strange website that will write you a haiku based on your location. It seems to default to lower east side of Manhattan, but if you click the “locate me” link at the bottom left of the page, it will recenter someplace near you, and then serve you up a haiku. You can also drag the map around using your cursor, to recenter it on a new location.

And now for our (optional) prompt, taken once more from our archives. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the form of a review. But not a review of a book or a movie of a restaurant. Instead, I challenge you to write a poetic review of something that isn’t normally reviewed. For example, your mother-in-law, the moon, or the year you were ten years old.

Happy writing!

Welcome back, everyone, for Day 23 of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant for the day is Moment of November, which inverts Emily Dickinson’s “My Nosegays are for Captives” into a lovely verse that takes roses as its starting point.

Our daily resource is African Poems, a website devoted to presenting poetry from Africa, with an emphasis on making oral poetry available to a wide audience through recordings.

Finally, here’s our optional prompt for the day! Start off by reading Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s “Lockdown Garden.” Now, try to write a poem of your own that has multiple numbered sections. Attempt to have each section be in dialogue with the others, like a song where a different person sings each verse, giving a different point of view. Set the poem in a specific place that you used to spend a lot of time in, but don’t spend time in anymore.

Happy writing!

Happy Saturday, all, and happy twenty-second day of Na/GloPoWriMo.

I just couldn’t choose one featured participant for the day, so we have two, both providing responses to Day 20’s “abstraction” prompt. First up is Salovie, with a mysterious meditation on the desert, and second, Christine Smart, with a brief lyric centered on spring blooms.

Today’s featured resource is the Open House poetry radio program. On each program, hosts Cornelius Eady and Patricia Spears Jones interview poets about their new and recent work. You can listen online, or live every Friday on NYC’s WBAI.

Today’s prompt (optional, as always, and taken from our archives) is a variation on a teaching exercise that the poet Anne Boyer uses with students studying the work of Emily Dickinson. As you may know, although Dickinson is now considered one of the most original and finest poets the United States has produced, she was not recognized in her own time. One reason her poems took a while to gain a favorable reception is their slippery, dash-filled lines. Those dashes baffled her readers so much that the 1924 edition of her complete poems replaced some with commas, and did away with others completely. Today’s exercise asks you to do something similar, but in the interests of creativity, rather than ill-conceived “correction.” Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it! (Not sure where to find some Dickinson poems? You’ll find oodles at the bottom of this page).

Happy writing!

Today we close out the first three weeks of Na/GloPoWriMo! We’ve just nine days left to go until April comes to a close.

Our featured participant today is clayandbranches, where the “future archeology” prompt for Day 20 brings us a lecture from the Cephalopod Academy.

Our daily resource is the BBC’s archive of poetry-related writing, where you’ll find essays and articles aplenty, exploring different poets, poems, and poetic forms.

Last but not least, here’s today’s (optional) prompt. Begin by reading Sarah Gambito’s poem “Grace.” Now, choose an abstract noun from the list below, and then use that as the title for a poem that contains very short lines, and at least one invented word.

Glory
Courage
Anxiety
Failure
Defeat
Delight
Confusion
Calm
Belief
Cleverness
Despair
Honesty
Deceit
Strength

Happy writing!

As of today, we’re 2/3 of the way through Na/GloPoWriMo. I hope you feel like you’re on the downhill slope, coasting towards thirty days of successful poetic endeavor!

Our featured participant today is Catching Lines, where aliens and bears are only some of the remembered terrors provided in response to Day 19’s prompt.

Today’s poetry resource is a little discussion about poetry in bookstores. There are plenty of bookstores around with good poetry sections (two of my favorites are Bridge Street Books in Washington, DC and Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Maine). But did you know that there are also a handful of bookstores that only sell poetry? Check out Boston’s Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop, and Seattle’s Open Books.

And now for our (optional) prompt, once more taken from our archives! Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists, whether human or from alien civilization, will make of us? Today, I’d like to challenge you to answer that question in poetic form, exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist? The object or site of study could be anything from a “World’s Best Grandpa” coffee mug to a Pizza Hut, from a Pokemon poster to a cellphone.

Happy writing!

Happy Wednesday, everyone, and happy nineteenth day of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Today’s featured participant is Elizabeth Burnam Poetry, where the abecedarian poem for Day 18 goes all the way down the alphabet and then all the way back up, while mocking corporate discourse.

For today’s daily resource I’d like to share this article about poetry and TikTok. When I first started writing poetry seriously, blogs were the big thing. That was twenty-five years ago, and now there’s poetry Twitter and poetry on Instagram and, yes, as new technology builds atop the old, poetry on TikTok.

And without further ado, here’s our daily (optional) prompt. For this challenge, start by reading Marlanda Dekine’s poem “My Grandma Told Stories or Cautionary Tales.” One common feature of childhood is the monsters. The ones under the bed or in the closet; the odd local monsters that other kids swear roam the creek at night, or that parents say wait to steal away naughty children that don’t go to bed on time. Now, cast your mind back to your own childhood and write a poem about something that scared you – or was used to scare you – and which still haunts you (if only a little bit) today.

Happy (shivery spooky) writing!

Welcome back, everyone, for Day Eighteen of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Today, our featured participant is words & words, where you’ll find a lovely reminiscence on reeds and the wind in response to Day 17’s prompt inviting you to play with repetition and with correspondences between human life and the natural world.

Our daily resource is the YouTube channel of Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room. Here, you can check out more than 100 videos of poetry readings, lectures, and discussions. There’s much to explore!

Finally, here’s our prompt for the day, once again taken from our archives and, as always, optional. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. You could write a very strict abecedarian poem, in which there are twenty-six words in alphabetical order, or you could write one in which each line begins with a word that follows the order of the alphabet. This is a prompt that lends itself well to a certain playfulness. Need some examples? Try this poem by Jessica Greenbaum, this one by Howard Nemerov or this one by John Bosworth.

Happy writing!