Notes from One Writer to Another
2013 April PAD Challenge: Day 9 | Write a Poem a Day Until May | WritersDigest.com.
Here is mine:
Hunter
A cat from
somewhere
in the neighborhood
has leaped
our cedar fence
and settled
herself, uneasy,
in the snow
under our
bird feeder.
She doesn’t
seem to know
she has no
summer cover
and no bird
will come close
as long as she
is there. Besides,
she is much more
than well-fed.
What draws her
she couldn’t
explain, even if
she had words:
rain forest
shadows in
the blood.
2013 April PAD Challenge: Day 8 | Write a Poem a Day Until May | WritersDigest.com.
Instruction
From interior
chaos, as
unobtrusively
ordered as
families of
suns swirling
gradually
toward the dark
centers of their
common demise,
or elementary
particles somehow
achieving mass
within each
strand of DNA,
we will structure,
like a mirroring
glass tower,
erected from
an image
in an architect’s
mind.
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.
Today’s challenge is to write a collection poem. Not everyone collects things, but a glance around our house would tell you that my husband and I do. He does it in a more organized way. My gatherings are distinctly haphazard.
Click on the link to go to Robert Lee Brewer’s blog and read the contributions of others. Then, add your own.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 26 | Collection Poem | WritersDigest.com.
Here’s mine:
JPEGs
They fill
the silvery
surfaces of
computer disks,
the hidden
resources
of external
drives, cloud-tops
from long flights,
footprints in snow,
drifting gold
leaves, glinting
sun on summer
lakes, blossoms
in spring orchards,
baby faces,
smiling friends,
all of them
held in virtual
memory, formatted
in universal jpeg.
Like Midas, I run
them through
my fingers,
longing to
hold on.
Linda Armstrong, 11/26/2012. All rights reserved.
The very first prompt this month on Robert Lee Brewer’s blog was to write a Matches poem. I was looking back because today’s assignment is to write an Opposite poem using a previous challenge entry. I realized that I have not linked to the first few poems and this could be a problem because I want a convenient way to gather them to submit for chapbook consideration.
You can enter the competition, too, even if you haven’t been posting or writing every day. Just choose your 20 favorite prompts from the month and write to them. Then watch for submission information early next month.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 1 | Matches Poem | WritersDigest.com.
Here’s my “Matches” poem.
We’re a match,
the two of us,
you with your
temper and me
too tempered
you with your
careful pacing
and me
with my wild
last minute
dashes.
We’re a match
of seeming
opposites, seamed
so closely together
that sometimes
there is no space
between us
like sky
and sea at
sunset on the
Pacific.
Today’s prompt is from Carol Stephen. It is a form called the Glosa.
Visit the site to read the complicated directions and to see some of the amazing responses.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 18 | Glosa Poem | Poetic Form | WritersDigest.com.
Here’s my attempt:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
(William Carlos Williams)
snow clouds drift
over
our valley
after
stair-step summer
ends
bitter winter
comes
weather bends
so much depends
on fickle
sun
swinging south
along
with bird flights
begun
weeks ago,
wedging
over lakes spun
upon
with visual
echoes
of industry
withdrawn,
a dormancy
deal
of last flash
gold
to mold-meal
a red wheel
turning through
eons
in coursing blood
and genes
in water and
marrow
cycles shifting in
farmer’s
slicing harrow;
barrow
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
The challenge today on the Poetic Asides blog is to write a trade-off poem.
Click on the link below to read others’ takes on the prompt and then, if you are inspired, add your own.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 15 | Tradeoff Poem | WritersDigest.com.
Tradeoff: A Very Old Tale
The city gate
was so narrow
that some called
it “The Eye
of the Needle”
but the rich
trader coming
from afar had
never been there
so he didn’t know.
The packs
on his camels
were wide
and bulged
out on either
side with all
the goods he
had brought to
sell, but those
who would
buy were inside
and he could
not pass
through the eye
of the needle.
Linda Armstrong, November 15, 2012, All rights reserved.
Today’s prompt on Robert Brewer’s Poetic Asides Blog is “stuck.” This is a good one for me, because I have not worked on my NaNoWriMo book since Sunday, and things were actually going very well. I even know what to write next, but I seem to be stuck.
Read my rationalization poem on the blog. Then check out the great contributions of others. Add your own, too.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 14 | Stuck Poem | WritersDigest.com
Inertia
I’m stuck
stuck
stuck
like the needle
on a vinyl
record
three days
without progress
or loss
I just
have to
state what
I want to do
and a state
of entropy
sets in
Something
in me loves
reflective
waters
and still
wants to
stay still
though I
still still still
keep
trying
to keep
moving.
Copyright Linda J. Armstrong 11/14/2012. All rights reserved.
and here’s another, inspired by another poet’s post:
For Jacqueline
They say
Cezanne
when stuck
in one of
his intertwined
compositions
tossed the
offending
canvas out
his window
into the intertwined
branches of one
of his trees,
only to retrieve
it when unable
to resist the
way it had
entwined itself
with his entangled
mind.
Today’s poetry prompt on the Poetic Asides blog is a letter poem (and/or a recipe poem). These are prompts I used in class when I was teaching. They are classics for a reason. They produce varied and excellent results for writers of all ages (and not just poets).
If you want to read the poems of other participants and post your own, click on the link.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 13 | Letter and Recipe Poems | WritersDigest.com.
Here’s mine:
Day eleven of the Poem a Day Challenge honors Veterans’ Day. Write a poem related to a veteran. Read the responses by clicking the link below, or add your own.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 11 | Veterans Poem | WritersDigest.com.
Mine is based on a story my dad told about a civilian telegrapher who was drafted and served with him in Alaska. He was the best telegrapher in the service (Alaska was vital for many reasons, including triangulation and intercepting enemy transmissions in the Pacific, so this man was a tremendous asset), but he was so miserable that he was suicidal and drank anything with any kind of alcohol in it. MuFu was the Japanese sign-off, and that’s what the guys called him.
MuFu
I was going
crazy
in this
icebox
so far from
home
I would drink
anything
to check out
for a while
or just
get warm
they wouldn’t
let me go
because
I was too good
even on lighter fluid
I could transcribe
messages as fast
as anyone
could send them.
MuFu
Sign off
The War was
over sooner
for me.
copyright Linda Armstrong 11/11/2012. All rights reserved.
One Way to Wonder 
Dear Dad,
You never were
much for writing
so I never wrote
you a letter.
You and I
always knew
each other
best through
landscapes,
pigments, brushes,
lenses, captured
hours, minutes,
and seconds
that will never
come back
but could be
relived again
and again
through transparencies
or stacked paintings
in a closet.
I write to you
now, looking
down at your
hands, freckled
and funny
as a write this,
and later,
when Alden
and I take
pictures of winter
deer, you will
be shooting with us
As always,
Linda