National Poetry Month: another PAD completed

Tags

PAD, poetry

2021 is my 10th completion of Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem A Day (PAD) challenge. That’s 300 poems written. I also do most of Robert’s weekly prompts, most of his November PADs, and I write poems on my own, occasionally. A conservative estimate is maybe 80 poems a year (30+30+20) over ten years or 800 poems.

800 poems in a life is a lot of poems. 800 in a decade may seem excessive. Really though, it’s hardly enough. I do not call myself a poet. I write poetry to learn about writing, about poetry but also prose. To me, poetry is focused wording, focused imagery, condensed lyricism. I consider myself a prose writer, and I want to have lyrical elements in my stories, I want strong imagery, I want to tell stories without telling them, all things poetry does.

Usually I am happy with something like a dozen of my 30 poems during these events. This month I was happy with two. Here is one of them.

All Our Futures

It’s not so much he only cared for himself
          some of the greatest leaders, inventors, and innovators were narcissists
it’s not so much his morality was lacking
          even the holiest can have their bad days
it’s not so much he stole all their money
          they would have just wasted it anyway
it’s not so much he lied through his teeth
          who hasn’t told a fib now and then?
it’s not so bad he cheats at golf
          really, who hasn’t kicked his own ball back in the fairway?
what’s so bad is he stole so many minds
          when truth is denied, the future is lost

The prompt for the day was Villain. It employs the rhetorical device called Anaphora which is the repetition of words at the begging of each phrase or sentence. Anaphora emphasizes each phrase and adds effective rhythm. The poem is a commentary on the present day political divide. Of course it’s aimed at #45, but he is such an easy target. Most of the literary world is against him, most who read widely are against him, so of course people liked this poem. I am not happy with the last line as it’s a retelling of the 4th line. But even if I change it, this is still a rather trite poem. I feel no inclination to expand or polish it. It was fun to write, but it will likely die in my cloud.

Most of my poems this month were rather prosaic. I’ve been reading Billy Collins’ poetry and he has a rather conversational narrative style. If you’ve never read him, please do so. He’s inspired my month of bad poems. I am afraid I fail at emulating his style.

I don’t yet know if I am happy with the following poem, but I had fun writing it. I won’t know if I’m happy with most of my poems until I put them to bed and wake them up some months later. Maybe in late summer I’ll discover a line or phrase, maybe a whole stanza, maybe a whole poem or even a series of poems that demand further work. But that time is not yet here. So just read it and feel my brain churn as I wrote this mess. It is an untitled Ekphrastic poem

There is a woman in it
that much I am sure of
the rest of it is, well
a mess is the easy euphemism.

She might be holding a vase
A rat gaping at cherries — or is that a fish?
Or an English hedgehog —  
and leaping from the white glass.

Only the woman and the vase,
the hedgehog, a rose, something
that looks like an otter’s head
and cherries are white, all else is blue

With bits of green, yellow,
and blobs of red. The tall stalagmite —
or maybe it’s a cactus or a stalk —
has two giant strawberries

Not dangling like normal strawberries
but embedded like stained glass
you can’t even see through, any of it
all of it, abstract and senseless.

That otter sniffing the rose
which is held by the red stumpy
watermelon man with no rind
and drips down on two men

Yellow, watching a backwards elephant
sneeze laundry and kites, and a green
elephant at the bottom sniffing Australia
which is also green so you know it has to be not real, But it’s the giant cargo ship
thrusting out of a map Puget Sound
like an alien from a belly that the girls attention.
You know it has to mean something.

The painting I wrote to is by Chelle Stein and can be found at her blog,

There is one poem I am quite pleased with. I am so happy with it, I already submitted it to the 2021 Canada Writes Poetry Contest. When I don’t win that, I will submit it somewhere for publication. Rattle Maybe. I did not post any of it at the PAD site, and I am not posting any of it here. It needs to remain unpublished. It is my practice to not publish my good poems online. It’s immediate disqualification for most literary considerations. Sorry.

I wrote this fantabulous poem to the prompt Waiting. It was April 17th so about ten days after the completion of The Masters golf tournament. I immediately pictured the pro golfers standing on Augusta’s 12th tee looking up at the tree tops and waiting for the wind to let up long enough to put their ball on the green instead of into Ray’s Creek. Oh the drama! The night before I had watched PBS’s Poetry In America episode on Elizabeth Bishop’s poem One Art. I fell in love with this poem, and I had the Villanelle form firmly implanted in my head. I wrote a first stanza, said “Dang, this is strong,” and I quickly opened Rhyme Zone. It then sucked five days out of my life, I quickly sought and found some feedback from the Seaside Scribes writing group I belong to, and I zipped it up tight and sent it off. I think it is a solid poem, a real solid poem, but it’s about golf and it’s about the esoteric struggles a golfer faces on the course with his friends in the wind. A golfer will love it. A poetry judge may just say, “Huh?”

I did not so much have fun this month as push through with my head down. I wrote a poem or two every day, I posted most, and I filled 37 pages of my current poetry journal. As I work away at my novel, I feel myself trying to write richer prose, so in that regard it’s a success.

Hey You! [my personal pronoun]

Tags

mainsplain, male, mansplainer, peronsal pronouns, poetry, Politically correct, pronouns, social media, white, white male, Workshop, Writing, Zoom

I attended a writing workshop yesterday. On Zoom. It was hosted by the University of Manitoba which is, according to that search engine and map, 3,178 kilometers from my home and a 33 hour drive. The proposed route leads me across Quebec from Montréal to Timmins ON, a route I would never consider driving in winter let alone summer. So make that a 40 hour drive. But I digress. I attended a pretty good workshop I probably never could have attended before the pandemic.

I’ve come to love Zoom. I am on calls every week, and it’s my only contact outside my home and Pete’s Fruitique in the City Market where buddy calls me Buddy: “Hey Buddy, is that everything?” I find myself wanting to tell him my name: “I am not your buddy.” Like a woman saying, “I’m not a deer!” And then last week a young lady was in the checkout line ahead of me and buddy said to her, “Hey Buddy, is that everything?”

Over Zoom, I’ve come virtually face-to-face with people in Ontario, Mexico, Portugal, Egypt, New York, Tennessee, North Carolina, Victoria BC, Toronto, Nairobi — I bet nobody else has had a Kenyan Cow bomb their Zoom meetings! — and now Winnipeg (and wherever these participants lived.) *One of them actually lives in my city. I didn’t know them and made friends with them on Facebook during the call. They could literally be my neighbour, met 3,178 km away.

Anyway, the Zoom writing workshop was on poetry and was led by a graduate student who I believe identifies as gay. His bio contained several LGBQ keywords, and… whatever. He seemed qualified to lead it, so I joined. Honestly, I don’t care about people’s sexual leanings. What you do is your business, and what I do is mine. It’s something we don’t need to talk about.

The session had about a dozen participants: the young, gay-identifying leader who had a trim beard, more than a single screen of participants I would describe as female, a couple of pictures with no picture at all but with female names, and me, the now senior-citizen-white-male. I like to know people. I am a people watcher. I am a people voyeur. I want to know everything about everyone. So I typed the full names (some used only their first name to keep stalkers like me off their tail) into Facebook search to see what came up. The first thing I noticed when I began reading the participants’ names were pronouns in parenthesis after their names, such as “Janet Smith (she/her).”

Cute, I thought, but why? I could find suitable pronouns to match their names/pictures, couldn’t I? I acknowledged that my visual cues might be incorrect, that one of these John-identified-females might actually identify as… whatever. Like sexual leanings, your personal sexual identification doesn’t concern me. Then, as my mind tends to do, I played out conversations that might take place where I might use these pronouns. “She said this, but I disagree.” I shook my head. These were conversations I would not undertake.

The leader gave his — his was his chosen personal pronoun, or I would have written their — housekeeping rules. Good leader! I rarely give any rules in my meetings. In fact, I tell participants in my prompt-writing there are no rules. Anyway, he said please pick your personal pronouns. I watched the remaining screen names expand to include “(she/her/they/etc.)”. I wasn’t sure what he was asking. Pick my own pronouns? The Paul Simon song, “You Can Call Me Al,” played through my head. I did not change my name.

This was a new experience for me. I assume the participants who had their pronouns already designated were familiar with this exercise. Extrapolations ran through my head. Is this some new practice being adopted in social media? I haven’t seen bracketed pronouns in any of my social media circles: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Zoom. Should I look closer? Is this a trend? If I ever get business cards printed, should I add my pronouns to my name and title? John Hanson, Writer. (Male binary he/him/his) My brief research since then indicates this is more of an academia and workplace practice. I am not involved in either.

The leader scanned his screen, probably saw that I had no personal pronouns designated, then went into a spiel about how to change your name in Zoom. And he/him looked right at me on the screen! I bet he/him thought I was the socially ignorant white senior male just getting his feet wet in social media — we will ignore the fact that I began using email around 1987, was a BBS junkie in the early nineties before finally getting on the internet in 1994, and have coded many complex websites and applications in my previous career. I sighed deeply and appended “(hey you!)” to my name. No, I don’t give a shit what you call me. I am the white, senior-citizen mansplainer stuck in his tropes. I have a dozen participants to refer to, to pick pronouns for, but I have trouble finding words to say about subject matter at the best of times. I have no time in a discussion to scan all the names to be politically correct. “I think the volta is this line, and I think… just a sec… her… no, she was wrong.” I have come to use “they” when referring to anyone: they/them/theirs. If they/them/their bothers you, I can’t wait to read your blog.

During the two hours and fifteen minutes, only one reference was made to another participant by a participant, and they used the person’s name. The leader referred to several of us but always used our names or the pronoun you. “What did you think of that?”

Nobody said, “Hey you!” to me.

NaPoWriMo (PAD) 2016, Day 2

Tags

PAD, poetry, Writing

For today’s prompt, write a what he said and/or what she said poem. Maybe he or she said a rumor; maybe he or she gave directions; or maybe he or she said something that made absolutely no sense at all. I don’t know what they said; rather, each poet is tasked with revealing that knowledge.

I jotted some phrases and they pointed the idea nobody records words anymore, unless it’s in social media. Nobody journals or keeps diaries. The modern world almost seems driven by hearsay. I began with a derivation of the old “She sells se shells by the se shore,” phrase and ran from there. The title comes from a phrase a baseball umpire from my teens used to reply to our disputes over balls and strikes. Words are meaningless. “Put it down on paper!” ended the argument. If you continued, you were gone from the game.

Put it down on paper

They said she said she sells hair gels by the sea shore
They said she said her prices are too high
If she really does sell well, if her proposition is legitimate and above board
Why rely on rumor?
Why not tell the world herself?

Why can’t she say what she is really up to these days?
Hearsay and supposition, gossip and innuendo
Why do we have to query people we don’t really know, to peek into
The life of some woman we thought we once loved
But we’re not sure we could pick out of a lineup anymore?
Behind the backtalk, faceless confrontation

You can’t trust what anyone says about someone else’s words, anyway
If she really wants to advertise to old friends, to old lovers
Put it in writing, put it down on paper
Or at least post it to Facebook

Poem number two

Scarred

I penned this at Starbucks this morning while waiting for a writers group to start.

Her words are a wall, empty and stacked
Her vocal chords oppressive twangs of plucked, out of tune guitar strings
Her teeth clack and crunch the Graham Cracker air
A Play-Dough factory of futility

I can’t reach out and I can’t run
Her lipstick full of luscious filth
She accuses and blames, me
A vice principal of commitment

Her ears are so dainty, and her breast
So scarred, battles of her own regard
She flails and parries, but never listens, never loves
What I say

Reading Poetry, again

Tags

creativity, jim harrison, leanoard cohen, poetry, prose

I’ve tried writing more poems than I’ve read. Well, before this past couple of weeks anyway. A couple of weeks ago I realized if I ever wanted to write serious poetry — and that decision is far from decided — then I had better start reading some, again.

I have tried reading poetry before. Usually I’d open an anthology at the library, read a poem or two, then fold the book back up in disgust. “What does this shit mean anyway?” I’d say. How can people write crap like this? How do people enjoy it?

And then I am drawn to a site like Robert Brewer’s Poetic Asides Blog at Writer’s Digest. I write a poem a day for a month and my head gets big. “I can do this,” I say. “It’s easy.” But  the honest truth is I have no idea how to write the things. I just write. I let the words explode from me and fall where they please. Kind of like this blog post. No plan, no form, just a rant with a possible end.

And then I will read a poem on Poetic Asides I think is crap but it has fifty comments praising it. And another will be total crap and have a hundred comments praising it. I chalk it up to popularism. You hang around a website long enough that people get to know you, you make enough generous comments about poems you don’t understand or appreciate, and sooner or later those make believe poets decide to like your generosity with praise and return the favor. Sort of like politics without the assholes.

I am being rude. Of course poets are nothing like I describe. I am making up excuses for my complete lack of understanding of and ability in the craft. I’d rather write prose any day. Conflict. Rising tension. Suspense. Imagery. Figures of speech. Empathy. A story formulated to encapsulate the reader. This stuff is easy (right); while poetry is hard. But something about poetry draws me in. I am a fish hooked on a line and not understanding what is causing the pain in my face as I somehow swim closer and closer to those green boots standing in the water.

When I read poems, something unexplained happens to me, and my prose writing likes it. I cannot adequately describe the effect, but I am open to new ideas, new words, new arrangements of words. It’s like a poem shuffles my brain and I am playing with a new set of random cards. I don’t even have to understand the poem. Most poems I don’t understand; they are puzzles to me, yet if I try to solve the puzzles, their effects backfire and I get nothing out of them. A bizarre game this poetry.

So a couple of weeks ago I decided to read some poems. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I was at Scheherazade Books and found a Leonard Cohen book it the $1 bin. I picked it up. What Canadian writer can resist reading Leonard Cohen? Stupid question, I know, but the answer should be none.

I was not enamoured by the book or even captivated. I struggled to read through it. I did enjoy a few of his poems, but most were … I gave the book an uneducated three stars. I said “They were terse and unemotional, written by a young man with a hard-on and little patience for the world.”

Before I had finished Cohen, I browsed the 800 section at my local library, the 803 and 808 writing craft books. Nothing interested me, so I flipped through some poetry books. Most were long and dreadful looking things written by people with unpronounceable names. I groaned. And then I saw the name ‘Jim Harrison.’ No, he’s not a Pawn Star but a prose writer. He is considered one of the unique voices in 20th and 21st century American literature. Les Edgerton recommends him, and I listen to just about anything Les Edgerton has to say, if I read or hear it. Les also turned me onto David Sedaris who I hate as a writer — his additive style irritates me. Anyway, it looked short and sweet, I like Harrison, so I signed it out. I hate his poems, but once again, they affect me in strange ways.

This past week I have re-written two major scenes in my current novel project, and I felt very much in control over the words. I explored and developed ideas that worked, I hope. I have also written a few poems and they felt good to write. Maybe it’s the reading of poetry and maybe it’s not, but something inside my grey matter is changing for the better.

I am now hoping to read poetry every day and write poems every week.

Tresspassing Poems

Tags

fermented, freer, poetry, prose, salsa, saurkraut, tresspassing, vocabulary, Writing

Been working hard on novelling, reading, and improving my vocabulary. I’ve also been making fermented saurkraut and salsa. Oh my, I do love fermented salsa.

I have started a Wednesday night writers group. We meet for a couple of hours at the library, and we try writing to the Wednesday poetry prompt, and we don’t limit it to poetry. I’m feeling like I’m loosening up a bit in my writing. The words are flowing a little freer lately. I hope you enjoy these two.

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/wednesday-poetry-prompts-194

For today’s prompt, write a trespassing poem. Your poem can be written from either side of the fence or take an impartial view from the sidelines.

#1

In a Cemetary

Leaning softly arm around arm
Shoulder against shoulder
Backs against granite
Hands gently squeezing
Warm cans of beer

#2

When The Night Falls

When the night falls hard like
The last wheelbarrow of stones dumped behind the barn
Picked from the field
Rocks our oxen stumble over and plough blade chips on
Or catches and halts us in the wet dirt
When that last light at Yoder’s fades and
The whippoorwill sings
When the mosquitos tresspass into your room
And you chase them with your only book
Your Huckleberry Finn swatter
And your head sinks into that feather pillow
Unable to lift itself from the fall
You know it was a good day

 

This is what poverty looks like.

Tags

poetry, poverty

Poetry Asides Wednesday Prompt

For today’s prompt, take the phrase “This Is What (Blank) Looks Like,” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Example titles might be: “This Is What Awesome Looks Like,” “This Is What a Poem Looks Like,” or “This Is What Love Looks Like.”

Untucked shirt, a chainmail design of small argyles connected by stains,
Coffee, Pepsi on sale three for five dollars, or watered down rum.
Leather shoes browner than dirt, useless in the heavy summer rains,
Dangerous in the icy winter with their slick bottoms and frayed laces.
Jeans no longer drag the rocks of broken pavement, worn
To snag the wayward roots and warped lumber,
Known obstacles in the overgrown path between crumbling, downtown ruins.
The baseball hat handed out by a roofing contractor at a trade show,
An arena with free coffee, big smiles, and warmth.
It fits, hides the matted mess of hair, hides some of the dirt.
A belt is not part of the package. They took it
At the drunk tank, and didn’t replace it.
Running a tongue between two teeth where a third and a fourth
Were lost to fists belong to different men and different discussions,
Produced the only taste of food on this day.
Hands in pockets rattle washers found when the landlord built a fence
And failed to guard at break, the fasteners nobody need steal at seventeen cents a piece.
Illusions for others, cunning trickery to emulate the sound
Of pockets full of money.
Proof of willpower to not spend every last penny
On cigarettes and booze.
Two butts in the road, next to the curb,
Picked up, brushed off, and pocketed
In the one holeless pouch.
A driver recognizes the shuffle and honks.
A hand waves back in automatic grasping.
The walker searches for freedom, liberation from labours,
An empty quiet on and empty street.

A Girl in a Hoodie

Tags

cafe, coffee, poetry, words, Writing

I didn’t write this in a café, but I did a lot of work leading up to it there. This poem is part of a poem a day event for April 2012 run by Robert Lee Brewer in his Poetry Asides bog at Writer’s Digest.

During April 2012 I opened the local Starbucks in our mall at 7am. I read and wrote poetry. It was National Poetry Month, so it kind of made sense. I don’t consider myself a poet, though, so this month was a jump into a cold, strange lake for me.

On this day, April 3rd, I went for my coffee before I knew the daily prompt. I spent the time watching and writing words. I divided my page up into nouns, verbs, and adjectives and filled up the sections. I accumulated about 75 words that morning. When I read the topic, I started writing imediately. I spent all of five minutes on it, but I have made minor edits since. Here is my latest version. Of course it’s about someone sitting in Starbucks, a young man.

A Girl in a Hoodie

You flittered by
with your click clacking high heels
and swinging blonde ponytail,
throwing expletives at the distinguished
businessman following you,
his dark rimmed Poindexters pouring over
your waddling perkiness

I’m glad you didn’t look at me
sitting, chatting with the empty chairs
and large policemen grappling
their morning caffeine fixes.
Fuzz with a buzz you called them,
no respect in your voice.

Oh how you hated the brown bagged bellies
and apathetic gazes of my world.
And how I hated yours,
the lotto booth looks,
the knitting basket banter,
and the pink baseball hat Friday night drinks.

I prefer the Joan Jett stroll,
a girl with confidence in her attitude,
a voice with character and opinion.
I want a girl in a hoodie