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.
Here’s my contribution for Day 6 of the Poem a Day Challenge. It draws from a strange childhood fascination–a small poster on a fence which I could read, but which seemed to make no sense at all. That fascination was, actually, an early manifestation of my interest in poetry–the multiple implications of words and the meanings that lurk among them.
2013 April PAD Challenge: Day 6 | Write a Poem a Day Until May | WritersDigest.com.
Post No Bills
The sign
on the
construction company’s
temporary fence
said “Post no bills.”
I could read
all the words
as I skipped past
and I read it
over and over,
so seemingly
simple, yet holding
so little sense.
My parents
muttered something
about advertisements,
but what did
Brill Cream or Babbo
have to do with
posts or bills?
They must have,
I thought,
misunderstood me
again, and I mulled
what adult secrets could
be hidden so out there
in the open, among
little words.
Here’s yesterday’s for Donna L. Sadd’s challenge. It’s a birthday Haiku.
#AprilPrompts – DAY 3 – BIRTHDAY – #Haiku – #NaPoWriMo | Donna L Sadd.
Following the Japanese seasonal, nature tradition, inspired by a real nest we saw–that bird was insane!
Birthday
Out on an elm branch
dangling over a swollen creek
a nest; a hatchling
Today is the first day of National Poetry Month! Today’s prompt on Robert Brewer’s blog asks for a “New Arrival” poem. Visit the link below to post your own. Mine is below.
2013 April PAD Challenge: Day 1 | Write a Poem a Day Until May | WritersDigest.com.
Arrival
Sudden
on spare branches
against storm-darkened
sky, tiny
leaves glow,
immortal green,
on globe willows;
not there
yesterday,
dusty next week,
they spring
from nowhere,
expected but
astonishing
miraculous as morning
or the word
“again.”
We are nearing the end of the Poem a Day challenge on Robert Lee Brewer’s blog. It has been an interesting experience. I will either continue with my own prompts or find another community. You are certainly welcome to join me by posting in the comments.
Today’s prompt at PAD is to write a poem about giving birth. Click on the link to add your own. You can join in any time.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 29 | Birth Poem | Experience | WritersDigest.com.
Here’s mine:
I kept telling
myself that
the Queens of England
did this
as I lay on the table
under blazing lights
coming undone
the most
private places
in full view
of strangers,
And then, the doctor
said, “He’s going
to be smart.”
A nurse said,
“What a pretty
little face.”
It was like
the blessing
in a fairy tale,
especially when
eyes still blue
as heaven
cast their
virgin gaze
on me.
Linda Armstrong, 11/29/2012, All rights reserved.
Today, participants in this year’s Poem a Day Challenge are writing a hero poem or a villain poem. Click on the link below to join the fun.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 27 | Hero Poem | Villain | WritersDigest.com.
The Villain
It doesn’t wear black
or lurk in alleys.
It doesn’t dwell
in putrid swamps
or waylay travelers.
It doesn’t creep
around in the dark
or carry knives.
It loathes all
drama.
It resists all
change.
It has no conception
of better.
It wants everything
to stay
the same.
Child of long
evolution,
Advocate of
unconditional survival,
it does not
trust aspiration.
It does not suffer
dreams. It keeps
me heavy and silent.
It cautions me
to remain safe
inside.
Linda Armstrong 11/27/12 �All rights reserved.
via 2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 27 | Hero Poem | Villain | WritersDigest.com.
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.
Today’s challenge on Robert Lee Brewer’s Poetic Asides Blog is to write an Opposite poem, using a previous challenge post as its basis. If you have not been participating, you can scan the previous prompts on the blog and take the opposite point of view, choose a poem by a famous poet and write a contrary reply, or do the same with a poem of your own. I looked over the poems I have written for the challenge this year and decided to use the one I wrote yesterday, “The Truth About Art.” I wrote “Lies About Art.”
To read a fascinating collection of replies to this prompt, click on the link, and then, if you feel inspired, add one of your own. Anybody can join in the fun. You have to register for the blog to post, but it’s very easy.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 25 | Opposite Poem | WritersDigest.com.
Here’s my poem:
Lies About Art
The harder
it is the better,
after all,
it’s about
the skill,
the height
of the leap,
the length
of the note,
the flawless
reproduction
of a photograph
in an unforgiving
medium.
The best
is dearest,
after all
experts know
a fine
investment
when they
see one
and no
great poet
has died
unknown.
It takes
years to learn,
after all,
the wheel
has been invented
and there are
so many
conventions
to attend.
Besides,
who would
want
to be called
a child?
Linda Armstrong, November 25, 2012. All rights reserved.
My day 21 poem is late. I spent yesterday shopping. It is a song title poem. If you have a playlist with a lot of song titles, choose five in order and turn the titles into a poem. Unfortunately, my YouTube lists are mostly videos about how to do things and clips of funny animals and my work music just includes things like sonatas, overtures, and symphonies. They have inspiring titles like #9 and #44.
I do have some favorites on YouTube with titles. I am addicted to the spiritual and the peculiar, and even better if both. Shape note music, Buddhist chants, Native American music, and a few odd folk-ish songs from the late 60s and early 70s are marked as favorites on my channel, I chose five of those.
Click on the link to read works of other on the Poetic Asides blog.
2012 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 21 | Song Title Poem | WritersDigest.com.
Here’s mine:
Inner Voices
be Thou my vision,
let me see without question.
Will the circle be unbroken?
I am a lonely pilgrim astride
a horse with no name.
The sleeper has awakened.
I cannot return.
Inner Voices (R. Carlos Nakai)
Be Thou My Vision (Irish hymn)
Will the Circle Be Unbroken (hymn by Ada Ruth Habershon)
A Horse with No Name (America, written by Dewey Bunnell)
The Sleeper Has Awakened (Gayatri Mantra)
One Way to Wonder 