National Poetry Writing Month 2013 Evaluated

Photo: Sally Douglas

Well, NaPoWriMo's over. I lost the last few days because of a family crisis, but over the month I managed to produce twenty-five poems. Some were completely new, some were old drafts dragged out for finishing. But the great thing for me is, that I have twenty-five poems that wouldn't have existed otherwise. National Poetry Writing Month has got me writing again. It's broken the block - not just with my poetry but with other writing too.

I know the quality is varied, but there are some poems I am really quite pleased with. Shell, This Day, That Thing You've Carried For So Long, Looking Out, Music Lesson - these are poems I am glad I have written. With time, no doubt I shall see some flaws, but that doesn't matter. I can still change them!

I've also had a great time reading poems produced by other poets this month, some by people I already knew, some from the NaPoWriMo website, and some via Twitter. Thanks for sharing your work, people!

Poem 25 - Red-tailed, Bumble

Red-tailed, Bumble

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Red-tailed, bumble,

common carder,

cuckoo, mason,

tawny mining,

leaf-cutter, hoop-shaver,

humble, honey,

homeless.

Bee.

Poem 24 - Another Riddle

Photo: Sally Douglas

Riddle

I am a lock turned by infinite keys,

A knot that’s too tight and too fine to untease.

Unpick me too far and my threads turn to dust,

but I’ll let you inside me to make what you must.

I am the white space as well as the mark,

I am the place you can find in the dark

I am said, I am thought, I am harsh, I am kind.

I blow free from the page in the winds of your mind.

Sally Douglas

In addition to being a riddle, this is possibly a manifesto of sorts. And the photo isn't a clue, but I think it fits.

I will post the answers to the riddles - eventually.

Poem 23 - A Riddle

Photo: Sally Douglas

Riddle

I am a judge (but I do not judge).

Soft darkness pours from my empty eyes.

With a shrug I weep onto the ground:

divide (not decide) what’s to keep or despise.

I am the O that holds onto stones,

fragments of twig, and shards of bones.

I am the O pierced all over by light.

I am the O! that is in plain sight.

 Sally Douglas

Any ideas?

Incidentally, if you're interested I wrote a blog post about riddles and readers here.

Poem 22 - Girl with a Letter

Photo: Sally Douglas

Girl with a Letter

(after Vermeer)

I close the window.

Draw the curtain

so the folds of red brocade

hang flat

against the day.

. 

I held them both,

the flatness

and the folds.

The flatness of paper

and the folds

within its words,

the spilling of the fruit –

my folding of your letter

into something very small.

Sally Douglas

The first draft of this poem has been on my hard drive for a long time - since 2009, according to the date on the file.  I attended a very enjoyable Poetry School workshop, run by Lawrence Sail, which focused on poetry and paintings. This poem came from an exercise based on Vermeer's painting Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window. I stashed the draft away, and didn't do anything with it until now, prompted by NaPoWriMo. So here it is.

Incidentally, if you haven't read any of Lawrence Sail's poetry, I would recommend it. You can find some of his poems here.

Poem 21 - That Thing You've Carried for So Many Years

Photo: Sally Douglas

That Thing You’ve Carried for So Many Years  

Once, you could have planted it

in the rich kindness of loam

in earth which would have let it breathe

and then you could have gone away

lived some life

visited the garden just from time to time

and one day found green shoots

clean new shoots which would have cheered you

however frail they were.

But to bend down to the ground

was far too hard.

Sally Douglas

The picture was taken in Bugle, Cornwall.

Poem 20 - More Fun with Oulipo Constraints

Photo: Sally Douglas

This Day's Constraint

Today is a death to sleep.

This set of hours is rest’s oblivion.

Day and dark want that fall’s fall,

ticking tiredly away –

Wednesday, respite’s murderer.

Tomorrow is the birth of wakening.

Today is a day to sleep.

I sit within indigo hills, in wing-singing wind,

below a slope of blade south-east.

On the ground beneath the sounds,

I am low in a sky of calling flight

all arching, flying, hymning over.

Oh, low moon-bowl of owl solos

below a sky of birdsong.

This poem is a result of a bit more playing with OULIPO constraints. The Oulipo Compendium (ed Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie, Atlas Press, 2005), describes a way of submitting a line or a stanza of poetry to a series of variations, thereby creating a new piece of work. It sounds both straightforward, and weird. It is weird, but it's surprisingly difficult to do, and the constraints force a creativity with language which can have very satisfying and surprising results. The poem above took some lines from yesterday's poem (actually I combined some shorter lines to make longer ones for this purpose), and submitted them to the following constraints:

First Stanza

1. First line in N+7
2. First line as a lipogram in a
3. First line as a univocalism in a
4. First line with nouns eliminated
5. First line with verbs eliminated
6. First line treated antonymically
7. First line in its original form

Second Stanza

1. Second line as a univocalism in i
2. Second line in N+7
3. Second line with verbs eliminated
4. Second line as a lipogram in e
5. Second line with nouns eliminated
6. Second line as a univocalism in o (Actually this should use the first line, but I made a mistake!)
7. Second line in its original form

It's fun to do, and really stretches the brain! I can't claim that it produced a fabulous poem, but I think it's a brilliant exercise to get the language muscles flexing without having to face the terror of the blank page.  

And I hope I haven't made any glaring errors when applying the constraints.

Or possibly, I hostage I haven't made any glaring europeans when applying the containers...