2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 30 | Milk Poem | WritersDigest.com

Today is the last day of the Poem a Day Challenge. I did not finish my NaNoWriMo goal, but I did write a poem every day. Now, it’s time to go through them and choose between 10 and 20 for the chapbook competition. You can enter too, even if you didn’t post. Today’s link leads to the final prompt, a “milk” poem, and the community’s responses.  There you will also find a link to the submission rules. Revision is allowed, and so are some poems not written during the competition, but most should have been created for the PAD challenge. You have until January to submit. (I get involved in other things and forget, so I will probably put mine together much sooner.)

This has been a wonderful experience, and I know that my efforts have been read by more people than would have seen most printed journals. I’ve met some wonderful new poets. I plan to keep posting my own warm-ups here, but other challenges loom and it might not be daily. Thanks for following and I hope you had fun, too.

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 30 | Milk Poem | WritersDigest.com.

Milk

White as

winter, poured

icy from

the refrigerator

 

White as

Grandmother’s

sheets.

delivered to the doorstep

 

White as

summer clouds

in my

first cup

 

White as

cream

for Dad’s coffee

from the top

 

White as

light

through the morning

window.

 

White as

simple

beginnings:

milk.

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2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 23 | Deep Poem | WritersDigest.com

Yesterday we were lazy and I got caught up in creating a special Christmas gift for my husband on Zazzle, so I am catching up on my poems this morning. The Day 23 poem is deceptively simple, but absolutely lovely. Write a “deep” poem. It can be anything deep. Click on the link to read the responses on the Poetic Asides blog.

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 23 | Deep Poem | WritersDigest.com.

Here’s mine:

Deep Space

 

Hurtling

past the last

clumps of ice

gas, rock,

and God only

knows what

else at the fringe

of the solar system,

Voyager, a

miracle wonder

of my younger

days, swings

out into the

more thinly

populated reaches

of deep space,

just as each day

I dive further

within.

Linda Armstrong, 11/24/2012. All rights reserved.

 

 

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 6 | Left or Right Poem | WritersDigest.com

There are two related prompts for today’s Poem a Day Challenge at Brewer’s Poetic Asides blog. You can write about “right” or “left.” I wrote about being left-handed.

If you submit your poem on the blog, write it first in a word processing program, then paste it in. The blog is so busy you get a “you are posting too fast, slow down” message. If you get this, use the backspace on your browser and keep submitting until it goes through–usually on the third or fourth click. You don’t have to post to participate in the challenge. You can read everybody else’s for inspiration and just keep your own file at home. You will still be eligible to submit your finished book (20 poems) in December.

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 6 | Left or Right Poem | WritersDigest.com.

Here’s mine:

The teller
filled out
my withdrawal
slip writing
as I do
left-handed
and upside down
I asked her about
the inevitable bump
on her middle
finger and
whether she was
an artist. She
said she drew
but wasn’t
great and I
admitted to being
no Leonardo. Then
I took my money
and she said
she had never met
another person
who wrote like
her, and that
remains true
of us both.

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 5 | Text Message Poems | WritersDigest.com

Today’s prompt is a little different. It challenges you to write a text message poem. Unfortunately, I am really cheap. My emergency cell phone does not include a data package, so I don’t text. Mine might be kind of strange. You can probably do better, but it’s one of my writing warm-ups for this month. Check out the other entries on Brewer’s Poetic Asides blog. The link is below, followed by my text message tale (yes, it is a story).

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 5 | Text Message Poems | WritersDigest.com.

where R U?

sky harbor

thot U were coming 2nite

chng of plans

where R U going

dont no yet

what do U mean

gotta go

plane?

whte lite

end of message

 

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 4 | Just Beneath Poems | WritersDigest.com

Today’s prompt on the Poetic Asides blog is “Just beneath…” If you need an idea for any sort of work, that’s a good start.

To read the many interpretations of that inspiration in Brewer’s community, click on the link below. You can also add your own.

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 4 | Just Beneath Poems | WritersDigest.com.

Here’s mine:

 

Just beneath

the surface

like a spawning

fish at the edge

of a summer

pond, something

pushes and

nudges. Fecund

and implacable

as a black hole,

it takes all

in. What

comes next?

I hold

my breath.

Blue Moon: A Full Moon Poem for PAD, 2012

Here’s my Day 2 entry in the Poem a Day Challenge for 2012.

The prompt was “Full Moon.”

To join in the fun or to read more responses to this idea, visit

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2012-november-pad-chapbook-challenge-day-2#comment-2036961

• Blue Moon

  It was still summer
  and still a little
  too hot to be
  out at noon
  here in the
  high desert
  of Colorado.
  We woke early
  and drove up
  to the edge
  of the city
  just below the place
  where the valley
  evaporates against
  the sudden edge
  of the Uncompahgre
  Plateau. Over
  the blue Grand Mesa
  to our right,
  the golden sun
  was rising, while
  to our left, over
  crimson cliffs,
  the blue moon,
  proud and full,
  was going down.
  In silence, we
  stood still
  beside our little
  car and felt
  the inexorable
  turning
  of the Earth.

Copyright Linda Armstrong, 11/3/2012. All rights reserved.

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 1 | Matches Poem | WritersDigest.com

OH! Mr. Brewer is having his Poem a Day November chapbook challenge after all! I thought he had moved it to April. Poets, take heed, do not feel left out of the NaNoWriMo fun. Zip over to the poetry blog at the Writers Digest site and check out the fantastic daily idea. You can catch up on the previous ones, too. It’s not too late. At the end of the month, you will have a chapbook, which you can submit. See you there.

2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 1 | Matches Poem | WritersDigest.com.