Tuesday, April 1, 2014

NaPoWriMo Day One

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April in National Poetry Month. In the tradition of NaNoWriMo, someone started NaPoWriMo in 2003. The goal is to write 30 poems in 30 days. It's that simple. Yes, it is.
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The official NaPoWriMo site will have a featured press, a featured blog, and a featured participant every day. They also offer daily prompts.

Here is the prompt for day one:
Our prompts are, as always, optional. If you have your own plans for generating poems, or find prompts elsewhere that suit you better, that’s just fine. Our prompts are there just to help those who are having trouble getting inspired – if you’re full up on inspiration, there’s no need to follow them. With that out of the way, I’ve chosen something I hope will be fun and simple, to ease you into your first day. Today, I’d like you to go to Reb Livingston’s Bibliomancy Oracle. Clear your mind, push the button, and then write a poem based on the quotation that the oracle provides. Happy writing!
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My Oracle prompt and poem:
this is the meet-up of movement and memory/ how our ancestors kiss each other in the stairwells of satellites/mischievous and right on time
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from “like seeds / or a guide to black feminist time travel” by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Truth of the Garden

Clematis hiking over painted trellis
slats interwoven green on white on wood
against the cement pillars of the porch.
Sun baking, rain pelting, wind buffeting
leaves and delicate flowers left over
from a decade ago when the house was planted
when the walls erected and the foundation
layed. Memories buried and covering and
hiding everywhere. "If these walls could talk"
has nothing on the preservation power
of roots and stalks and rhizomes
and the flowers they produce
year after year.
Infinity.

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