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.