Day Twenty-Two

Welcome back, everyone, for the twenty-second day of National/Global Poetry Writing Month.

Our featured participant today is Cutting Hail, who brings us not just one poem in response to Day 21’s “instructional” prompt, but three!

Today’s daily resource is the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence, Italy. If you are at all interested in Renaissance Italian masters, it’s the right place to get an eyeful of Titians, Caravaggios, Botticellis, Canallettos, and da Vincis.

And now for today’s optional prompt! Did you take music lessons as a child? Despite having all the musical talent of a dried-out lemon, I took two years of piano lessons. I was required to practice for half an hour a day, and showed my disgruntlement by playing certain very annoying songs – like Turkey in the Straw – over and over, as loudly as possible. But while I thought of the lessons as a kind of torture, I’m glad as an adult to have taken them – if only for the greater dexterity it gave to my hands!

In her poem, Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons, Diane Wakoski is far more grateful than I ever managed to be, describing the act of playing as a “relief” from loneliness and worry, and as enlarging her life with something beautiful. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something you’ve done – whether it’s music lessons, or playing soccer, crocheting, or fishing, or learning how to change a tire – that gave you a similar kind of satisfaction, and perhaps still does.

Happy writing!