NaPoWriMo Day Eight

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The (optional) prompt for today is a rewrite. Not editing. Not of your own work. No.

Today, let’s rewrite a famous poem, giving it our own spin. While any famous poem will do, if you haven’t already got one in mind, why not try your own version of Cesar Vallejo’s Black Stone Lying on a White Stone? If you’re not exactly sure how such a poem could be “re-written,” check out this recent poem by Stephen Burt, which riffs on Vallejo’s.

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Directional Meditation

by Dot Hearn

after Gertrude Stein

Which what I need to tell you is this

Cycles perpetuate cycles and how they begin

Is a mystery but we know the ending

Does not stop unless we find

How they begin.

Why yes of course.

All of us can learn that east of course

Is east of east and continuing east

It is still east no matter what.

You need not worry.

What I need to say is this.

Yes of course

My source/prompt poem:

from Stanzas in Meditation

by Gertrude Stein

Part V

Stanza XXXVIII

Which I wish to say is this

There is no beginning to an end

But there is a beginning and an end

To beginning.

Why yes of course.

Any one can learn that north of course

Is not only north but north as north

Why were they worried.

What I wish to say is this.

Yes of course