Our World Word by Word
NaPoWriMo Daily Challenge: A Poem for Ruth and Don
I have been writing (or trying to) a poem each day for the NaPoWriMo daily poetry challenge to commemorate National Poetry Month. As of today, April 28, I have written 24 poems. This year instead of posting all my sometimes feeble attempts to the public, I've only been brave enough to share them with other poet friends who are on the same journey. They know the struggles of trying to be almost brilliant every day.
Now that National Poetry Month is drawing to a close, I thought I'd take the plunge to share a few of my poems here. For Spring Break this year, I took my first trip to Hawaii to visit my good friends Ruth Thompson and Don Mitchell of Saddle Road Press, the publishers of my book Always a Blue House. There were a few days there in their lovely house on the Big Island when Ruth and I would be writing our poems on different floors.
So here is one for you, Ruth and Don:
Day 12
Silver Swords
Ruth raved about them,
thorny globes glistening
among lava falls
on the slope of Mauna Kea.
We bumped our way
along a rocky track,
like the roads in Tanzania,
distant plains spread out before us
green and gold like the Serengeti.
How could this be Hawaii?
Then there they were, shining
like unsheathed blades,
presence potent
as she had promised.
Poetry Challenge A Year Late
Tania Pryputniewicz sent me a poetry challenge last March: Use at least three of the musical expressions on the front of this card, plus cat, plus piano or other musical instrument of your choice in a poem. Game on!
It's almost April, which is National Poetry Month. This was a good way to get myself back into writing shape before attempting the NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) 30-poems-in-30-days challenge.
It's taken me a year to write this poem. I guess publishing a book got in the way. But, Tania, here it is!
Piano forte
Hauled all over Texas,
Colorado until Illinois,
Mom’s big upright in the corner
never made it past the blue house.
Legs scuffed from rough and tumble,
keys stained, discolored ivory
cracked by shoes and toys.
One senza music -
sounding thunk, thunk.
Childhood cat a black
eighth note, paws soft-stepping
across the keyboard,
drew ghost music,
dolce espressivo.
I could pick out high C,
my piano lesson a solo
cut short when we had to move,
finding a new place again.
Mom dragged that piano
all over those living rooms:
it held stockings at Christmas,
once played divider, enough space
for a hillbilly bedroom.
From her red Methodist hymnal,
she filled each house
with chords poco marcato:
“Onward Christian Soldiers,”
“Thine is the Glory.”
In the end strong men
hauled its black body away,
Mom stood at the window,
sheets of music in her hands.
Musical terms:
dolce espressivo – sweetly expressive
forte - strongly
non tropo vivo – not too lively
poco marcato – a little emphatic
Slice of Life: NaPoWriMo
SOL 2016 Day 28: Really Only Four Days Left?
National Poetry Month: April 1, 2015
It's that time again: National Poetry Month which means I'll be participating in NaPoWriMo once again. Last year I posted a haiku on my blog every day in April. This year I'm determined to post different types of poems each day.
And if any of you want to write a poem to me, I'll post your work as well.
So taking courage in hand (who in her right mind would post poems when they are newborn?), here goes.
Day 1:
Day 30: Haiku Continues While Saying Goodbye to Poetry Month 2014
National Poetry Month has been more of an adventure than I had expected. I took up the challenge of posting a poem every day for 30 days to prove to myself that I have the writing discipline to follow through. After having proclaimed my intentions to my entire online community, I had many, many witnesses to watch my progress.
Of course already having pledged to write a haiku every day in 2014 helped. My haiku practice was already in place, but before April those poems had been posted only in a private Facebook group. For the month of April, I had to find the courage to send my little haiku out into the big, bad online world. And I admit at first I was very nervous. After all, it's difficult enough to write a poem every day, much less a good one. Sending out any poem, the good, the bad and the downright uninspired seemed like a huge risk.
But the response from readers has been more positive than I could have imagined. I've gained more followers on Twitter and have had some of my haiku re-tweeted to spread them even further. That amazed me. In a workshop I attended about creating an online presence as a poet, the director of Poet's House in New York advised tweeting lines of poetry. He was so right. There are actually people out there who are looking for poetry online. I just had to give them what they wanted.
I even have some readers who want me to continue posting my daily haiku for them. The encouragement and readership I've gained makes me feel the need to keep sharing - perhaps just less often. I have cringed when posting poems that I didn't think were worthy, so from now on I'll just share the highlights of my weekly practice. And keep the others to myself. But I promise that I will write a haiku every day for the rest of the year. I'm up to 119 with only 246 to go.
And so on this last day in April, the 30th day of haiku postings, I bid National Poetry Month 2014 adieu with one more springtime haiku:
flocks of hoodies swoopmiddle school hallways winging true for June's promise
Day 29 National Poetry Month
turn east to face dawn
birds sing tree-ward morning songs
pull sun from night's bed
Day 27 National Poetry Month
sails wind bowed gold-dipped bay splash
salt spray baptism
Day 25 National Poetry Month
by dawn it had fled so sad
this overfilled brain
Day 24 National Poetry Month
washed in opal twilight we
surely become pearls
Day 23 National Poetry Month
Where is your song? Chickadee
invites us to sing
Day 22 National Poetry Month
behind wind-driven clouds while
dawn trees toss young leaves
Day 21 National Poetry Month
slow road down to sea
above green-graced hills such blue
yellow fields must shout
Happy National Poetry Month: My interview in The California Journal of Women Writers and Haiku Number 20
Recently Marcia Meier, my friend and fellow AROHO alum interviewed me for TCJWW: The California Journal of Women Writers. This online journal was founded in 2012 with the mission of "fostering and enhancing the visibility of North American female authors, and narrowing the wide gender gap found in discussions in the literary world" by featuring reviews of women’s literature as well as interviews. I am incredibly honored to appear on this wonderful site.
Interview: Lisa Rizzo
Meier: What inspired you to begin writing poetry?
Rizzo: I started writing poetry because I was desperate. Even though I had always wanted to write, I only dabbled with it until I was in college. Then I began to attempt writing fiction. I tried over and over to write stories that withered away to dust as I struggled with the characters and plot. I just couldn’t make them live. Then one day, sitting in the big chairs in the university library where I always sat, out of sheer frustration I abandoned prose and tried to write a poem. No, I wrote a poem. It came bursting out of me in one swift flow and that was it. I’m not sure why I had never tried poetry before. I guess I had never thought someone like me could write poems. All my traditional liberal arts education had made me feel that poets were people far out of my realm. But there it was, a poem.
Haiku Number 20
sun seeps through curtains
light motifs across wood floors
salute Spring-bright day
Day 19 National Poetry Month
head's trajectory down up
nodding yes to life
Day 18 National Poetry Month
sipping purple blossomed sage
dance blue day to night
Day 17 National Poetry Month
Day 16 National Poetry Month
dogwood oak crabapple plum
allergies abloom