Today's poem isn't mine alone, but the renga all the August writers have been working on behind the scenes together. You'll find that at the Tupelo site, and I'm afraid it's our swan song. And, of course, it's a bit of a relief to know I don't have to write a poem today, but I have to say it's been a satisfying ride.

So now everyone's gotten 30 days to peruse what's going on inside my head, and it's time to close down the blog. I'll be sorry to give up this morning chore of writing a little bit of poetry and about poetry to a sympathetic audience. Maybe I'll take it on again in some form down the road. But, right now, I'm here to announce that Gail's done the 30/30 (will wonders never cease) and survived.

I'm also here to thank those of you who supported me, especially the nineteen generous souls who donated to Tupelo in my name. You've given to a wonderful press, an organization that year after year produces beautiful, cutting edge writing and helps to keep poetry, especially, alive and well in the world. And to everyone who supported me with a "like" or a comment, I can't tell you how heartening it has been to find you out there and to get a chance to share my writing with you. Thank you, everyone. And much, much love.

I admit I was scratching for topics when I came up with this one. But I am fascinated by that state between waking and sleeping when words let go of my mind and images take over. So I tried writing into that. The poem (the next-to-last-poem) can be found at Tupelo, of course. (You've figured that out by now.) 

Between Sleeping and Waking

A picture rises, each line distinct—a jar of purple fruit,

pale flesh pressed to glass, shadows a midnight blue. Then green

shade moving, an August field I passed on Gardener Hill

and when that image stutters, I’m in a stable, watching

a horse lift her head, turn it away. In a story I don’t recognize

on some high afternoon, at the heart of a rural summer. All around me

the rustle of animals. I am looking into a broad shaft of                               and sunlight floating in the yellow air—sparks of dust. 

Titles drive me crazy. First this one was just, “Falling Asleep”, then “Dream Starter” which ended up sounding too “cute” and now it’s “Between Sleeping and Waking” which feels ham-handed. There’s a word for this stage of sleep: hypnogogia. But who’s going to read a poem titled “Hypnogogia”? Anyone out there got a suggestion? I’d be grateful.

And speaking of gratitude, I want to thank each and every one of my patrons. You guys came through with a great collection of prompts. I felt way luckier than some of my cohort who did have to rise to some pretty impenetrable challenges. A poem a day for 30 days? That was challenge enough for me. Thank you so much, friends.

My sister-in-law Kathy DiMaggio asked me to write about our family trip to Yellowstone sometime back when the kids were teens and tweens. In the photo above, you can see Kathy, my husband Tony and Arlene (the teenager) discovering the Continental Divide. Against all odds, we met every challenge with a little ingenuity and a lot of laughter, and Kathy's the one who tried the buffalo burger. We all of us love remembering that journey. The poem's called "Cross Country" and you'll find it as usual at Tupelo. 

We didn’t know what switch

would light the bedroom—

the middle kid had to show us—

or that it’s ten hours to Niagara, or that six

people in a rented camper

with three beds—

that would mean a lot of paper-rock and scissors.

We didn’t know that the youngest

would wake up with a case of puberty,

refuse to put down her book

to see the Mississippi,

but love her birthday pizza in Lake Erie.

That the Bad Lands

are a moonscape from an old movie,

When I tried to find a way into this, I couldn't escape the thought that we must have been crazy. We decided to rent a 24-foot motor home and pack into it three adults and three kids, one of them 14 and the other two 12 and then drive (in only two weeks, mind you) from CT to Yellowstone and back. On the way, we figured we could squeeze in stops at Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, Keystone, Devil's Tower and (unforgettably) a place called Jellystone. By all rights, we should have come home barely speaking to one another and unable to look another motor home in the face. We came home even better friends than we started, and Tony and I had bought our own tiny, second hand motor home by the time the month was out. You never can tell. 

So, thank you, Kathy, for the prompt and the pictures and the trip and everything else. And thank you, Lisa, Arlene and Tom for being such a wonderful part of the ride. The whole ride. 

This poem is a combo. First, Kay Morgan gave me the title "Blue Minded" which comes from a theory (a fact in my experience) that going for a walk on the beach will cure most cases of low spirits. Wendy Reidel asked me to write a poem using the words "saline drip", "ocean" and "tears." So I put them together and made a poem. Thank you ladies. The poem will be up soon at Tupelo, of course.

Bue Minded

When I’m an old woman tethered

to the silvery length of the saline drip, I’ll imagine

my every ocean. Thank them, for the days

I carried sadness to the sand, the long horizon, and

left it behind. Last year’s blue afternoons spent

where sharp-elbowed pelicans lifted up over the Gordon River.

The picture above is of Eastern Point Beach—the beach close to our house in Groton, CT when I was a kid. The rest of the poem visits a handful of my favorite beaches both Atlantic and Pacific. If the poem starts on a dreary note, remember I did have to find a way to get saline drip in there somewhere, and I decided I'd rather do it to myself than somebody else. Actually, the poem was fun to write. All those glimpses of water.

I'm feeling nostalgic this week, I guess. Tomorrow's piece—requested by Kathy DiMaggio—is has to recall the trip we all took when we were all much younger and raring to go. It's reminding me how fortunate I have been to travel so much of this beautiful country. 

Allow me to introduce you to Gracie, who's an important part of this poem and my daily life, though I only get to borrow her from Andy Gray and Erica Bodwell who are her real people. The poem is a self-portrait based on a piece by Adam Zagjewski. The full Monty will show up here around noon. Here's the opening. 

Self-Portrait with Dog in Winter

At 12, I said I was a child

of the summer and almost drowned

trying to swim the Miramichi River,

Now I have lived so long

I can no longer

rise from the floor without thought.

But even so, the beautiful, brown dog comes

when I call her, and lays her long head

on my knee.  I admit, silent snowfall

harasses my mood, also

calorie counts, also the memory

of my father’s death though it was

no sadder than most. No lonelier.

But lately as I fall asleep,

pictures slide in:

splintering gray porch boards,

Rose of Sharon

in an old garden. A child in a sundress

jumping rope on white sidewalks.

Is this my own life unreeling

on the screen of my almost sleep?

Have I forgotten all this beauty?

I liked Zagjewski's poem, it's random, un-curated way of trying to express identity. So I thought I'd write a self-portrait of my own and throw into it--without too much worrying about how one thing might be connected to the next--everything that's important to me at this stage of my life. I borrowed from Zagjewski the phrase “children of…” though he said, children of the sky, and the inclusion of walking through an art gallery and how that made him feel. But I found myself adding a lot of details to suggest what I experience here and now, both looking back a bit, and also living a (mostly) peaceful and happy old age. It proved to be an interesting challenge and I'm pleased with the poem. Besides, it gave me an excuse to show you a picture of Gracie. 

Thanks again for everything, folks. It's been quite a journey and I've loved most of it. I admit I am now thinking a lot about all the lovely time I plan to waste starting Aug. 31. And ice cream. I'm also thinking a lot about ice cream.

I owe this prompt to Judy Nugent, who asked me to write about a woman who finds herself so swept up in this crazed election season, and political news in general, that she might be called obsessed. No one's claiming the poem's a description of anyone in particular. But I have spotted the phenomenon. Look for "The Big Hunt" on Tupelo around mid-day. Here's the way the poem begins. 

By six am she’s scrolling

BuzzFeed and the Times, racing down

through headlines, pictures,

hunting Him, the sight

of Him grinning, fist like a hammer

above his own palm. Isn’t his hair

paler? Has the Post weighed in

on the impact of the color of his hair?

Morning and He might have tweeted

something incendiary. She needs to know

if He’s stalling out, if He’s

turning it around,

if Armageddon’s crept closer. Survey

Monkey, oh, please, Rasmussen, tell her

which lead’s expanded by

a tenth of a thousandth of a point,

Here's what made this one fun: I got to use words like BuzzFeed and Tweetstorm and Survey Monkey. I think there's an interesting tension between poetry with its long tradition of being high culture and the high-energy, edgy language of the digital news machine. I like to find an excuse to mix the two. And I also like to get a chance to go over the top, to be not quite so serious for a change. 

By the way, I'm hoping I haven’t given the impression that the character in my poem is dedicated to one party or the other. I wanted to keep that entirely open. I think media frenzy is a craziness that pops up on both sides of the aisle. And thanks, Judy, for the idea. It was fun. 

"In the Cellar of Night" is a nightmare poem based on a pair of recurring dreams I've had off and on for years. No, I don't know what they "mean" and if you do, possibly it would be kinder not to tell me. The challenge of writing the poem is to capture the mood of those particular dreams, and this is just my latest attempt. There have been others. As usual, look for the full picture on Tupelo around mid-day. 

I am always

unable. Drowning

in motion, and dragging

my hand along the walls

in the half-light. The house is always

contorted, rooms off a long hall,

each one danker more

deserted.

I’d forgotten

these rooms, how they ramble,

doors rotting, jams twisted, floors

where knuckles

of roots shatter joists

and the sound of water

darkens step by step.

For me, dream poems have two attractions. First, their surreal. Salvador Dali and all that, something twisted and familiar at the same time. Second, I am not a natural lyric poet, almost everything I write bends toward a story, but I do believe that a good poem  ought to have elements of both: fragments of narrative and at the same time intense, not explicable emotion. Which is kind of an exact description of a dream. Or, at least, of my dreams. 

So Day 24. But who’s counting. I have a feeling that when Day 30 arrives, I'll feel both relieved and a little abandoned. It has been so much fun to share poetry with you guys. I also plan to sleep for a week. 

I decided to try a dictionary definition form on the word "someday." This idea actually came from Erica Bodwell who's just had her definition poem "Summer" accepted at Persephone's Daughters. My attempt is titled (unsurprisingly) "Someday." Find the whole thing here around noon. Here's a little bit for now.

Someday. adv. 1. An unspecified time, esp. that future when all the dreary details of this day have vanished—no quarrels over his drinking, no credit card blues, no squeal in the rear axle.  As in: At last, her father will hold her close and weep for his blindness. As in: out in the driveway, a shiny new car. On the soundtrack: Beethoven’s Fifth. 2. Occasionally referring to a day of reckoning. As in: Someday he’ll get what’s coming to him: black eye, eviction, a slow leak in a heart valve. 

These poems pretty much have to be prose poems which I am not so prone to write. I like the extra control of sound and meaning I get with line breaks. And this one's a bit dense. On the other hand, I like the energy that comes from letting this rigid format push back against a tragic view of human life. As in: we're always waiting for someday. It seldom arrives. By the way, I can take this bleak view of things and still have a wonderful day and notice the blue, blue sky and the dry air. Maybe even notice it a little more carefully. 

Well, we're down to a week. Which means I've written three whole weeks’ worth. Twenty-three poems to be exact. Couldn't have done it without every one of you. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. 

Today's poem is a cento, a "collage poem" made up entirely of lines from various poems in Ross Gay's newest book, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. This one’s entirely on me, I can't blame anyone for the prompt but myself. The poems go up here around midday. Here's a little to keep you going till then: 

The Way Back Up from Down

You’re right, you’re right

there’s a puritan in me

tumbling through the

never again

which was dragging my hands along its belly.

I can sometimes make these scribbled artifacts.

My name in the dust on the pews.

And can I run

to the dark

from nothing

from the slow honest tongues of horses

from my mother’s sadness

that’s been there forever?

I'm feeling pretty good about this one since I've never done a cento before. It's sort of a cross between a crossword puzzle and a Rorschach test. I started out by collecting a whole bunch of lines and then trying to see where I could combine them into something like a sentence or a meaningful collection of phrases. Then, somewhere in the middle my own mind started to make patterns, and then I went back in looking for more material to encourage that line of feeling. At the end, I’m not sure it’s a poem in its own right, but it was very interesting to work with, and I got to know a little more about Ross Gay’s wonderful book of poems.

And for my next trick.... But you'll have to come back tomorrow to find out. They're still taking donations for the wonderful Tupelo press here. They'd love to hear from you (and I would, too).  

My brother Rob sent me this picture taken we-won't-mention how long ago. It was an odd feeling looking into the eyes of that young woman, barely married herself at the time. So I wrote this poem to her. It's called "To a Girl at Her Brother's Wedding" and I used "girl" with malice aforethought. I've posted an excerpt here, and the rest will be going up at Tupelo later today. 

From this end of time, I can tell you that you’re prettier

than you know in your flowered dress, and that probably

everyone sees how hard you’re trying. The careful

smile is giving you away. You can’t know

that the couple at your table will divorce, or that you never will.

I decided to write a modern Shakespearean sonnet, first, because one of the fine writers in my 30/30 cohort—Catherine Abbey Hodges—wrote one right at the beginning, and it blew my socks off. And then, this is kind of a love poem and what could be more appropriate, right? But mostly, I just liked the idea of the longer lines, the three stanzas going in one direction and then the turn just there at the end for the last two lines. That felt right for the long look back and then the wish for one more glimpse. 

The days are dwindling, I hope the poems aren't going to. If you've always wanted a poem of your very own…. Or if you've always just wanted to give me an order, here's your chance. 

This haunting picture comes from Winter Abbott, and once I'd seen it, it followed me in the dark. As Winter pointed out to me, everything about it seems ambiguous, including the season, though it's called Summer. I've written something titled "Landscape" and, frankly, I've no clear idea where the story in here came from. It just grabbed the steering wheel and kept driving. Here's the excerpt. You'll find the rest here.

Low blue hills and a flickering sky. Nothing

has moved in the field

for a long time now. That fingernail shape

could be a house busy with laughter,

where lunch gets made

and shared hungrily, but

at this distance, it’s easier to believe

in pulled hair, bitter silences.

What baffled me about the painting was the color. Objectively speaking, those colors are cheerful--pale yellow, pink, bright blue. And yet the painting's a moody, ghostly piece, partly because of the complete absence of anything human. And then there was weird fence/non-fence. I just had to write about it. 

I'm still cadging for scraps here. Got a prompt? Send it here. 

I have to thank Emari DiGiorgio, another friend and writing partner, for asking me to link a poem to her birthday: January 2. I thought it would be fun to try writing an unconventional horoscope for her and today's piece is the result. I've titled it "Under the Sign of Titan". (That's Titan, Saturn's largest moon, posing above). You'll find an excerpt here and the whole piece here:

Under the Sign of Titan

For a Woman Born on January 2.

You are Friday’s child, though some weeks not. Other 

astrologists may insist on Capricorn, but there is also 

Andromeda who had much to evade and a tether to break. 

On the other hand, you would never tolerate a rescue. To 

create your totem animal, we would need a griffin 

and a swan, creatures both fierce and full of grace. Not

Saturn ascendant, but Titan...

The actual poem is intended to be set in a narrow column like a newspaper horoscope. You get the idea. One of the discoveries of this project is the fun and creative energy I receive from taking a non-poetic set of conventions--a dictionary definition, a medical diagnosis, a horoscope--and making a poem that uses some of that specialized language. The strategy is oddly freeing, leading me to juxtapose images and phrases it would not have occurred to me to mix together. And we're always looking for a surprise in the poetry game, aren't we? 

It occurs to me that someone out there might be able to think of one of these unpoetic forms I could take a shot at. If so go here, and leave the suggestion. 

My  friend and writing partner Erica Bodwell sent me this twin set of pictures, and my first reaction was, “Are you sure you want to give me this great material?” But Erica knows her own mind, and--as she said--she can always do her own riff in her own time. So I took a swing at it. The poem's called "Looking for the Original" and will be up at Tupelo around noon today. In the meantime, here's a group of stanzas: 

Someone—he may call himself

the family artist—

takes a photo of this girl

then makes it over

into a drawing.

In both pictures she is seven,

the season is summer, she’s

curled on a bright red rug,

which he uses to frame her. First,

the rug holds the girl, the original girl,

and then each picture in its turn

surrounds her, trains our eyes on her. 

As some of you may have noticed, I love to write in response to a work of art. First, there's the whole visual description challenge. Beyond that, I'm intrigued by the way the art of words and the art of image/shape/color fulfill each other (and fail each other). But finally, I feel such a poem forces me to grapple with the question of which is truth, where is truth. And for me, that's the heart of writing poetry. Going in after the truth.

So lecture over. I need to thank Kathy DiMaggio and Wendy Reidel for coming through with another two prompts. Whew! And you two are the best. Anyone else got a notion? Go here and drop it off. 

I wish I could claim I'd taken this picture, but I didn't, and the title of the poem "A Tolerance for Rain" comes from Winter Abbot who--obviously--is something of a poet herself. As it happens, we got an afternoon of half-hearted thunder and steady downpour just in time to put me in the mood. The whole poem will go up at Tupelo. Here's an excerpt:

A Tolerance for Rain

for walks with no

purpose, unsalted food, hemlocks

beautiful in their weeping,

the neighbor’s long stories—

what happened on the bus, things

the plumber said.

I’m learning to put up with it,

CNN a muted background to my life,

blister on my instep.
Morning mirror,

this lined face.

I have an ongoing project of writing about becoming conscious of aging, a bizarre project, I guess. Not something most of us love thinking  about. On the other hand, I have to write about the things that occupy my mind, and that's sure one of them. I'm glad to be back in NE where it's easy to look out the window and think about time and change, what with the seasons coming and going, the trees subsiding and exploding again into green. On the whole I live a peaceful, drama-free life in the middle of that easy rhythm, and I'm mostly glad of it. Mostly.

I've wrtten seventeen poems. I can hardly believe it. Now I have to write another. Want to help? Go to the donor page and read all about it.

My husband's parents lived at 57 Farmington Avenue in New London where their grandchildren, the three cousins in today's poem, spent most of their summers and many an after-school winter day. The oldest cousin is my niece Arlene and she's asked for a poem about this house. For her, for all of them, it has a special magic. The poem's titled Dream House and here's the opening. You can find the rest, of course, at Tupelo. 

The oldest cousin dreams

Nanna’s house in the summer,

the iron bench like twisted lace,

the morning glory trellis. Nanna

in the garden, Nonno reading

on the patio, all the furniture

layered with paint Nanna mixed

from the latex leftovers—beige-rose,

blueberry-cream—because

she loves to keep things safe, 

The truth is Arlene darn near wrote the poem herself, sending me a wonderful paragraph full of her memories. I used a great many of them, but I couldn't help adding a few of my own. I remember watching my mother-in-law figuring time after time how to keep three active children occupied and happy, and it turns out I'd stored away a lot of images and smells and sounds. Another poem that was fun to write. Thanks, Arlene

So, I know you saw it coming, here's the pitch. I NEED a prompt. Three. And counting. Then, what am I going to do?  Go here. Help me out. 

I think my daughter was two when I took this picture. She's not any more and today's her birthday. When she asked for a birthday poem, it sent me back to the night she was born and her father--finally able to leave the two of us safe and fine in the hospital--went home to find the basement flooded. He opened the door, he said, and the water poured past his knees. I've always thought there was a poem in there, and here it is. Or part of it, anyway. The whole thing's posted at Tupelo

The Flood the Night You Were Born

Rivers have sources, destinations, but ground water

rises, no end in sight, through walls we thought

we’d proofed against invasion. That night the flood poured in,

found its stormy and overwhelming way. First,

licking at the window sill. Now, drenching the ceiling..

I have always found it especially hard to write about my kid. I'm prickly about the possibility of invading her privacy, and scared to death of going all sloppy and sentimental. I'm too close to this one to be sure whether I've evaded those two problems or maybe plunged into a brand new one. It did feel good writing it. Time will tell. 

Down to four prompts, my friends. I'm counting on you. the donation site again (in case you can't bring yourself to scroll down) is here. You've got ideas. I know you do. A nice title. Some photo hiding on your smartphone…

I photographed these bolts of fabric at Liberty a department store in London when I was there a couple of years ago with Pat Devanney and Kay Morgan. Pat's the one who asked me for a poem about a place we've traveled together, and out of my many options I chose a moment at the Tate Modern in London, Kay in the gift shop and Pat and I being as British as we could, drinking tea. It's not possible to sum up our long, rich, wonderful friendship, but it felt good to try. The poem--all of it--is posted here. You'll find a little of it below.

At the Tate Modern

I was excited

about Louise Bourgeois’

giant spider Maman, and you

were excited about the fabrics

at Liberty where that day

you’d picked up bolts,

laid them down,

and I’d trailed behind thinking we’d spent

the same morning

in New York a year ago

except there you’d bought raw silk

instead of linen.

But that afternoon at the Tate

I said I was sixty,

and you said, No,

fifty-nine. Recited my birth date, added

the current year.  Do the math, you said, 

smiling...

The thing that's heartening about the Tupelo 30/30 is that it reveals to me that I can, in fact, write a poem in a day if I just don't allow myself to weasel out of it. No whining that I should really call an old friend, or walk the dog again or vacuum the rug. No sudden determination to reorganize my files or binge watch movies on Netflix. No. First I have to write the poem. If only I believed this level of devotion would follow me into the rest of my life. 

Meanwhile, I'm hungry for prompts. My brother and a woman mysteriously referring to herself as "Winter" have come through for the moment, but I like a good solid backlog. My donations page is here. Leave a note either here or there. 

The picture above is supposed to represent a gardener's shed that stood near my parents' house. It caught fire the summer I was twelve, and let's just leave it at that.  In Aimee Nezhukumatathil's book, Lucky Fish,(Tupelo Press, of course)  she has a poem "Twelve" about that peculiar halfway-in, halfway-out stage of girlhood. It set me to remembering that year, my struggles with my mother and hers with me. The poem's called "Threshold" and is posted in total here. But here's a piece of it:

Daddy’s building us a new house,

my pregnant mother said. And soon

I’d have to set the table for one more

left handed brother.

All that seventh grade year

I hated her

because she said she liked

my braids, said my glasses were

sophisticated, and the girl

who made fun of me

was only jealous.

In English class, I sat with a book

in my lap and all day boys walked

past me in the hall—

their shoulders, 

their big-knuckled hands. 

One of the best ways for me to get ideas for new poems is to fall in love with other poets, and then go trawling through their books looking for a poem I wish I'd written. Then, I try to write my version of it. I may borrow the subject matter or the form or the structure, or leapfrog off an image. The trick is to end up with my own piece that's not simply a derivative of someone else's. Sometimes, it works, sometimes not, but at least I'm writing a poem. Take a look at Lucky Fish if you can. It's a lively, wonderful book. 

I'm down to five prompts and I have SEVENTEEN poems left to write. Panic is setting in. I just snapped at my entirely innocent dog. You don't want to feel responsible for dog suffering, do you? I didn't think so. Consider going to my donor page here and leaving me a note. Dixie will thank you for it. 

Lois Chiovoloni, my dear friend and my younger brother's widow, asked me to write a poem about "heartbreak", by which she meant widowhood. As it happens, I know a think or two about that . No way around it, folks, this is a sad one. Call this my trigger warning. As usual, the whole poem's posted on the Tupelo web site, and here's the opening.

Widowing Syndrome

                     After Ross Gay

Sometimes called heartbreak, a constellation of symptoms associated with the loss of that someone who was there when the sufferer broke her leg or buried her mother or heard, for the first time, the call of a particular warbler in a particular wood. The one who knew her blood type and liked to stand beside her rubbing her back while they chatted with neighbors. The onset is typically abrupt: the tones of her favorite song sours and flattens, sunlight shifts toward red, and there follows a sudden, vicious eruption of ordinary memories.

As you can see, it's a prose poem in the form of a medical diagnositic entry and I'm cribbing from Ross Gay who uses that strategy to amazing effect in his second book, Bringing Down the Shovel. In fact, if you're in need of an antidote to sadness, you can't do better than his latest book titled (wonderfully) An Unabashed Catalog of Gratitude. You can never do better than reading Ross Gay unless, of course, you're reading Larry Levis. 

I've still got some prompts to see to, but my stack is running low. So if you'd like a poem of your very own, go here and leave me a note with your donation. 

Last October, a group of poets sponsored by--as it happens--the Tupelo Press, got to spend a week in North Adams, MA at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Or MASSMoCA if you're a close friend. We had an extraordinary week working with Jeffrey Levine, Tupelo's publisher, and exploring this vast 19th c. complex and the wonderful art it houses. While we were at it, we held a reading for ourselves in the Boiler House. Joanne Corey, one of those poets, asked me to write about our week together there. Here's a part of the result. (The whole poem appears here.)

Poets Gather in the Boiler House to Read Their Work

We’re hoping to live a week in this aura

of ornate eaves, rusting metal,

hoping to put words to it. What

is the role of the poet?

On Berkshire mornings

the boiler house once poured out

a practicality of steam, kept workers

from freezing at the looms.  

My father spent forty years making nothing

but ball bearings. While children

dodged the huge plates

slamming out deafness and broken/arms. 

The lines in italics were each written by one of the poets who read that day--in the case of the excerpt, the first italicized line is the work of  Donna Fleischer and the second of Kyle Laws. The rest of the poem incorporates the lines from 6 other writers. 

The trick of using words picked up out of one context and put down in another is called "found poetry", and it challenges the assumption that words and their meaning are stable. Here the sense of the words shifts when they leave the original poem behind and are placed in the midst of a new piece. The whole thing fascinates me (if not a lot of other people). 

So here we are. Day 11, I believe, and I'm still keeping my head above water. (That sound you hear is me, paddling hard). I am so grateful to the chorus of encouraging voices and every one of my kind sponsors.  If you'd like to donate, go here and put your request in the note they ask you to write to me. Thanks again, everyone. You're the best. 

Joan Blessing offered me this photo of her granddaughter, Lydia, tasting the breeze on a family trip to Hawaii. Joan offered another prompt possibility at the same time, but I fell in love with Lydia and decided to write her an ode--because odes have no downturn, no dark underbelly and for Lydia I wanted a poem all celebration. The right fit, I think, for a little girl who's clearly mastered the art of enjoying the world. The whole poem's on the Tupelo web site here. But this is the way it starts:

Ode to Lydia, Who I’ve Never Actually Met

You who know the art of celebration

and have probably just announced

to everyone on Kamehameha Highway: This

is the best day ever. You're the girl

who hugs each gift,

and says, voice aching with gratitude,

I needed this. Outside the window,

Hawaii flies past and

your childhood too, but

you’re a girl with a gift for tasting

the colors of a brilliant day. 

I used to have a kind of bias against odes. Something about being afraid to sound too much as if I were cheer leading or maybe it was discomfort with the second person. All those chirpy you's. Then in the spring I read Neruda and decided I was obviously missing the point. I've got a long way to go before I reach any territory contiguous with Neruda, but I'm willing now to start the trip. 

Thank you to everyone who's supporting me and offering ideas. I am so grateful to you all. I still have 20 days to go, though. So like the greedy cuss I am, I'm asking for more. My donor page can be found here.  (In other words it hasn't moved.) You can leave me a prompt here on the blog, on the donor page itself in the note they ask you to write, or at my email address. 

Tony Castro, a writing buddy of mine from my years in Florida, asked me to write a poem titled "That Naples Day," but I cheated and wrote instead about an evening, the one I spent with Tony and his wife (and more writing buddies) at the Castro's beautiful home. Truth is I've also cheated by combining two different evenings, maybe even three, but as someone recently said to me, poetry is, after all, fiction.

What's not fictional is the beauty of the place, the charm and kindness of the people. In any case, Tony has often urged me to follow my muse. And so the poem, called "That Evening in Naples", went where the muse took it.

You'll find the poem here and an excerpt below.

Someone had arranged a vase of bougainvillea

on the mantle, and I remember

prosecco and good, sharp manchego

while someone explained patiently

that the whole point to Alias Grace

was that we never know

who is to blame for loss and suffering.

Later people mentioned Mahler,

Billy Strayhorn, which led

a woman with bright grey eyes

to recall camping in Shenandoah,

a summer filled

with Tennessee songbirds.

On the subject of poetry as fiction: I'm reminded of Grace Paley's observation that writers who are trying to tell the truth often have to do so by telling a big lie. Another way to say it: the facts are one thing and the truth another, and sometimes the facts just get in the way of whatever core reality a writer's trying to get down on the page. It doesn't matter whether we talked about Strayhorn or not. It matters that among us was someone who loved and knew jazz and the rest of us enjoyed listening. 

You, too, can provide me with opportunities to cheat and write you something that's not quite what you asked for. I'd really appreciate the chance. Check out my donor page here and leave a message at gaildimaggio@aol.com. 

A young friend of mine, Matthew Bodwell, asked for this poem. He's a junior at Bates, but more to the point , a musician, lead singer and guitarist with the Lewiston Variety, a four man group playing indie rock, psychedelic, and even some jazz." Matt's always been curious about my husband, the man in the picture,  a jazz trombonist who played with some world class players even in the late years when live music was increasingly on life support. You can find the poem as always at Tupelo. Here--as a jazz man might say--is a taste:

A Litany of Gigs

For the first, he was 18,

and the band bus picked him up

on 95 half way to Boston—this sturdy

kid by the side of the road,

that awkward trombone

dangling from one hand. And the gig

at Lenny’s, Ray Charles sitting in

on Let’s Go Get Stoned, and the time

he played with Bennett, Krupa

on the drums. Or Brandee’s Wharf,

a two story glass box on the river, filled

with light and brass. Eighteen of them

just in from London, and they’ve put away

four up-tempo charts in a row

when he reaches for that note

at the high peak of Someday,

and hits it so pure and clear, the reed

players turn together 

and grin. 

I wanted to capture something of the way musicians are always playing mainly for other musicians, the way they listen to each other, ride each other and remember one another's best solo's, best phrases. Best damn high notes. Not unlike poets, who write for each other, too. 

I'm very grateful to Matt for asking because I loved writing this poem. And as it happens, tomorrow is the 9th anniversary of Tony's death. This was a lovely way to remember him. 

But, of course, I'm only a quarter done. You can see how much help a prompt can be, can't you? Send me one. I'll be grateful to you, too. Here's the donation page. And leave the request at gaildimaggio@aol.com.

This painting, titled Pacific Coast Combers, is  the work of Jock Macdonald. A very dear friend of mine, Dawn Apelian, saw it in Victoria and thought I might have some fun trying to write about it. And I did, even apart from the fact that it's a fascinating picture to spend some time with--all that tension between the sea and the sky. And in the middle those cryptic rocks. The poem's on the Tupelo page. Here's a piece of it:

I’m thinking the artist

could’ve called it: three ways to live

with the aftermath. But you, of course,

will look at the sky and talk about

the one way to rise above it, you’ll love

the clouds like a shoal of dragons,

a drift of ghosts. I’ll bet

as a kid you loved the stories that led

to a dark quest with repentance at the end,

or at least a quiet room.

So, of course, you love these pale beasts. These

sky creatures

with their long view of things, their hope.

But look at those waves:

monster paws,
exploding out of green turmoil. 

It was to my complete surprise that I ended up writing as if we were overhearing two people standing in front of this painting and one of them kind of hogging the conversation. It's called a dramatic monologue. Who writes dramatic monologues anymore?

That's the thing about the 30/30. It's like riding a grizzly bear because you might get there, you might even get there fast. It's just that the bear's the one who's going to get to define "there." I did not set out to write a piece like this. I just had to write a poem and the bear headed into dramatic monologue.

Meanwhile, and as always, more prompts. more prompts. Check out this page if you want to donate. Send your ideas to gaildimaggio@aol.com.

I don't garden anymore: bad knees and a condo board that frowns on my messing with the common ground. But for many years I spent winters yearning over seed catalogs, springs making my husband till another perennial bed. Flowers are always beautiful, but flowers that survive made me think.

The whole of "The Perennials" can be found here. But this is how it opens:

The Perennials

At 40, I transplanted my mother’s peony

from her yard to mine. Feathery globes,

and at each center a drop

of blood. Like my mother,

I loved splendor I could

count on to return. I was 42,

when I first turned the dirt

for hollyhocks and bleeding heart,

watched them erupt year by year, spreading

in widening circles

around the old brown heart, 

I want to thank those who have already offered poem ideas--every one of them inspiring. I'm working my way through. If you haven't yet, but think you might be interested in joining this select group, you can donate here and send your poem request to gaildimaggio@aol.com.