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Category Archives: NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

Targets and teamwork: how to complete a daily writing challenge

06 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016, Writing News

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Follow the Brush, NaPoWriMo, Write-Track

Following on from our teamwork on the great NaPoWriMo challenge in April, Divyam and I were invited to write a blog for Bec Evans at Write Track on Targets and Teamwork. Follow the links and enjoy Divyam’s wonderful cartoons!

follow the brush

NaPoWriMo 2

I am THRILLED to be featured on the Write-Track blog, together with my writing buddy, the fabulous Christine Cochrane! Join us for a conversation about taking part in this year’s NaPoWriMo, including the challenges we faced and how we supported each other along the way. Plus: CARTOONS!

What keeps us going as writers? Staring alone at the blank page doesn’t always work; sometimes it’s about targets and teamwork. Christine Cochrane and Divyam Chaya Bernstein are two writers who recently completed the daily writing challenge NaPoWriMo. They tell us how they supported each other along the way.

Read the full article here: Targets and teamwork: how to complete a daily writing challenge

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Prompt 30 – a poem in translation

30 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

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Klabund, NaPoWriMo, Winterschlaf

NaPoWriMo

Here’s the final prompt from Napowrimo http://www.napowrimo.net/ who have kept me entertained and my brain sharp throughout the month of April. Big thanks go to Divyam Chaya Bernstein, who has been a great writing mate and written some pretty good poems too over on her website at https://divyamchayabernstein.wordpress.com/   Thanks also go to all of you who have dropped in and ‘liked’ and made comments!

So here’s the final prompt:

Because we’ve spent our month looking at poets in English translation, today I’d like you to try your hand at a translation of your own. If you know a foreign language, you could take a crack at translating a poem by a poet writing in that language. If you don’t know a foreign language, or are up for a different kind of challenge, you could try a homophonic translation. Simply find a poem (or other text) in a language you don’t know, and then “translate” it based on the look or sound of the words. Stuck for a poem to translate? Why not try this one by Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska? Or here’s one by another Laureate, Tomas Transtromer.

What a great way to finish! Because I know a foreign language! I remembered that about 20 years ago I’d translated a poem by the German writer Klabund (1890 – 1928) for a competition run by the Association for Language Learning but I no longer have the obscure journal in which it was published (it won!) so I tried to redo it. Maybe it’s better this time! The title might on first sight appear unseasonal, but I only have to look out of the window at the snow on the hills to realise it’s not inappropriate for this freezing weekend. And also, after a month’s poetry writing it’s time for a rest…

Here’s the original by Klabund

Winterschlaf

Indem man sich zum Winter wendet,
Hat es der Dichter schwer,
Der Sommer ist geendet,
Und eine Blume wächst nicht mehr.

Was soll man da besingen?
Die meisten Requisiten sind vereist.
Man muß schon in die eigene Seele dringen
– Jedoch, da hapert’s meist.

Man sitzt besorgt auf seinem Hintern.
Man sinnt und sitzt sich seine Hose durch,
– Da hilft das eben nichts, da muß man eben überwintern
Wie Frosch und Lurch.

Klabund, 1890-1928

And here’s my translation.  I have stuck as closely to the original as I could, with a little leeway here and there.

Hibernation

The year now turns to winter
and a poet’s lines come slow –
the summertime is over
and flowers do not grow.

What are we now to write about
with things in iced up state?
Into the soul we now must go –
that’s where we hesitate

With troubled brow we sit and think
till trouser seats wear through –
perhaps it’s best to hibernate
as frogs and toads all do.

DSC01276

Prompt 29 – an ‘I remember’ poem

29 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Two more to go! Here’s today’s NaPoWriMo prompt:

Poet and artist Joe Brainard is probably best remembers for his book-length poem/memoir, I Remember. The book consists of a series of statements, all beginning with the phrase “I remember.” Here are a few examples:

I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.

I remember how much I cried seeing South Pacific (the movie) three times.

I remember how good a glass of water can taste after a dish of ice cream.

The specific, sometimes mundane and sometimes zany details of the things Brainard remembers builds up over the course of the book, until you have a good deal of empathy and sympathy for this somewhat odd person that you really feel you’ve gotten to know.

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on things you remember. Try to focus on specific details, and don’t worry about whether the memories are of important events, or are connected to each other. You could start by adopting Brainard’s uniform habit of starting every line with “I remember,” and then you could either cut out all the instances of “I remember,” or leave them all in, or leave just a few in. At any rate, hopefully you’ll wind up with a poem that is heavy on concrete detail, and which uses that detail as its connective tissue.

I remember

Shocking-pink knitting wool
behind a draper’s window covered
with yellow cellophane: my mother said
it was too bright for a jumper.

Shilling blocks of ice cream with
three stripes pink, brown and white:
they were wrapped in cardboard
which we peeled off and licked.

Glass bottles of limeade
standing on the shop floor
engraved with Bon Accord, Aberdeen:
we savoured green fizz at parties.

My brownie uniform and
the smell of its leather belt:
it was important to tie the yellow tie
with a reef knot.

Blue nylon party dresses
and sticky-out-petticoats:
they had to be worn with shoes
painted with Meltonian EasyWhite.

Shoe shops with
brown Start Rites and Clark’s Sandals:
they had an X-ray machine
that made your feet green.

The lash of skipping ropes
in the school playground and
the flash of a shocking-pink jumper:
I was envious of it.

This started with a recollection of the corner shop where I was sent as a child for a shilling block of Walls ice cream; I always wanted a jumper made from the bright pink wool in the window and never got one. I followed on with random recollections of that time, then shaped them into a poem where colours seemed to pop up in every verse. I remember in colour! In my first version, I began each stanza with ‘I remember’ but in my final version I decided it was better to trim it.

Prompt 28 – a poem that tells a story backwards

28 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

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Hurtigruten, NaPoWriMo

Here’s today’s prompt from the NaPoWriMo website:

Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that tells a story. But here’s the twist – the story should be told backwards. The first line should say what happened last, and work its way through the past until you get to the beginning. Now, the story doesn’t have to be complicated (it’s probably better if it isn’t)!

For this prompt I’ve tried to write a poem that is the Hurtigruten Norwegian Coastal Voyage backwards. If you start with the first line and read down you will get the Classic Voyage South.  If you start with the bottom line and read up you will get the Classic Voyage North.   Take your pick!

Hurtigruten – The Voyage South

Feet planted east of Cairo
at the north of Europe
wind-blown we touch the globe
tundra tourism
Nordkapp’s towering cliffs
the straight road
past reindeer herds
cloudberries, rock, bog,
shops of Sami goods
moor and rock
at Honningsvag.

Near pungent cod drying racks
we fall asleep to sucking of waves
fishermen’s cabins red and gold
dark mountain spires
on Lofoten.

Blue, bare mountain
green water reflecting
red wooden houses
pines cling by waterfalls
the fjord finger
at Geiranger.

Augmented fourths
Arietta on Grieg’s piano
seven hills round a fish market
at the harbour
we embark
in Bergen.

Hurtigruten – The Voyage North

043_ChrissyRomsdalsfjord

Prompt 27 – a poem with long lines

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

≈ 2 Comments

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Dresden, Frauenkirche, NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Here’s today’s NaPoWriMo prompt:

Today’s prompt comes to us from Megan Pattie, who points us to the work of the Irish poet Ciaran Carson, who increasingly writes using very long lines. Carson has stated that his lines are (partly) based on the seventeen syllables of the haiku, and that he strives to achieve the clarity of the haiku in each line. So today, Megan and I collectively challenge you to write a poem with very long lines. You can aim for seventeen syllables, but that’s just a rough guide. If you’re having trouble buying into the concept of long lines, maybe this essay on Whitman’s infamously leggy verse will convince you of their merits.

My poems usually have short lines, so this was a challenge.  I reworked a draft of a poem I had written about the German city of Dresden, which I visited five years ago.  I was inspired by this photograph of the reconstructed Frauenkirche and the statue of Martin Luther.

042_MartinLuther_Frauenkirche

 

What the guide said

The dark stones are from the original church, the guide said. Dirty stones
salvaged, sorted, bonded to bright new ones, machine cut. Many died here;
bones crushed, homes destroyed. Silence and smoke drifted over chaos.

We lift eyes to the dome’s bulk against blue skies where our planes,
pregnant with bombs, once droned in black night. The dome dominates,
too large for the church beneath, dwarfing the statue of Martin Luther.

He spoke the language of the people so that all could read the word of God
in their own tongue, the guide said. Behind us cameras click; a thousand voices
speak different languages; spoons clatter on silver metal tables of street cafes.

The church stands firm, symbol of peace and reconciliation, organ music
singing through open doors. And in this film set of buildings, this city
sanitised, reconstructed, reshaped, we try to comprehend the invisible past.

Prompt 26 – a call and response poem

26 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

≈ 4 Comments

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African music, Call and response, NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Here’s today’s prompt:

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates a call and response. Calls-and-responses are used in many sermons and hymns (and also in sea shanties!), in which the preacher or singer asks a question or makes an exclamation, and the audience responds with a specific, pre-determined response. (Think: Can I get an amen?, to which the response is AMEN!.). You might think of the response as a sort of refrain or chorus that comes up repeatedly, while the call can vary slightly each time it is used. Here’s a sea shanty example:

Haul on the bowline, our bully ship’s a rolling,
Haul on the bowline, the bowline Haul!

Haul on the bowline, Kitty is my darlin’,
Haul on the bowline, the bowline Haul!

Haul on the bowline, Kitty lives in Liverpool,
Haul on the bowline, the bowline Haul!

The call can be longer than the response, or vice versa. But think of your poem as an interactive exchange between one main speaker and an audience.

Here’s my response to the call of today’s prompt.  It’s a long way from yesterday’s poem at Callinish, and it’s a bit more colourful.

Earthsong – Call and Response

Rhythm of earthsong
tread dusty ground
blood pulses in veins
and the sun beats down!

     You dazzle in colour
      leap to the sky
      to the beat of the drum
      you hold then fly!

We sing the songs
from Africa’s core
our voices in harmony
upwards soar.

      You dazzle in colour
      leap to the sky
      to the beat of the drum
      you sing then fly!

We dazzle in colour
leap to blue sky
to the beat of the drum
we sing and fly.

     You dazzle in colour
      leap to the sky
      beat your own drum
      but together fly!

Over the years I’ve enjoyed learning some ‘call and response’ songs from countries in Africa in community choirs, and that is what came to mind for this prompt.  I’ve also had a go at African drumming once, and enjoyed the ‘call and response’ that goes on there too.  Drumming and singing in this way enable us to start as individuals but finish up in harmony.  I wanted this poem to have a strong drum beat rhythm.

Prompt 25 – a poem using a line from another poem

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

≈ 7 Comments

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Callinish, NaPoWriMo, Ted Hughes, The Horses

NaPoWriMo

Here’s the prompt!

Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it. This will work best if you just start with a line of poetry you remember, but without looking up the whole original poem. (Or, find a poem that you haven’t read before and then use a line that interests you). The idea is for the original to furnish a sort of backdrop for your work, but without influencing you so much that you feel stuck just rewriting the original!. For example, you could begin, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” or “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” or “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster,” or “they persevere in swimming where they like.” Really, any poem will do to provide your starter line – just so long as it gives you the scope to explore.

Megalith still

Mist swirls

round

the circle

jagged teeth

of stones

pierce damp,

Atlantic air;

grey silent fragments

in a grey silent world –

we touch the past

listen in emptiness:

hear no voices.

I took a long time to do today’s prompt. All the lines of poetry that came to me such as ‘I must go down to the seas again’ had such a strong rhythm they seemed to dictate what came next so I struggled to find a good line prompt that gave me room for imagination. The lines I have picked come from the middle of ‘The Horses’ by Ted Hughes – ‘grey silent fragments in a grey silent world’. Later in the poem he uses the expression ‘megalith still’ which I have taken for my title. I had in mind the standing stones of Callinish, Isle of Lewis.  Not a horse in sight. This started life as a compact, fatter poem but then decided it preferred to be tall and skinny like a standing stone.

DSC_2183

Prompt 24 – a ‘mix and match’ poem

24 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

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NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Here’s the prompt from NaPoWriMo:

Today I challenge you to write a “mix-and-match” poem in which you mingle fancy vocabulary with distinctly un-fancy words. First, spend five minutes writing a list of overly poetic words – words that you think just sound too high-flown to really be used by anyone in everyday speech. Examples might be vesper, heliotrope, or excelsior. Now spend five minutes writing words that you might use or hear every day, but which seem too boring or quotidian to be in a poem. Examples might be garbage disposal, doggy bag, bathroom. Now mix and match examples from both of your lists into a single poem. Hopefully you’ll end up with a poem that makes the everyday seem poetic, and which keeps your poetic language grounded.

Aubade

I will open the cupboard door
in the early light;
pack plates in wicker basket –
a caprice, this day
when sun rises mellifluous.
Our plans nebulous,
we will pack the car boot,
with tartan rug, food, drink,
drive to that moment of felicity
in the tree’s shade,
ephemeral,
special,
while the sun rises to its zenith.

This is the list of words that I came up with:

obeisance
aubade
felicity
halcyon
caprice
mellifluous
zenith
penumbra
nebulous
ephemeral

tree
food
drink
rubbish
tartan
get
car boot
shopping
soap
cupboard

With this I definitely felt ‘less is more’ and did not use all my words.  I could have got a more wacky poem if I’d gone for some more bizarre choices for the everyday words.  Perhaps I’ll try that another day!

Prompt 23 – a sonnet

23 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

≈ 2 Comments

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NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Here’s today’s NaPoWriMo prompt – and oh, it’s a sonnet!

Today, I challenge you to write a sonnet. Traditionally, sonnets are 14-line poems, with ten syllables per line, written in iambs (i.e., with a meter in which an unstressed syllable is followed by one stressed syllable, and so on). There are several traditional rhyme schemes, including the Petrarchan, Spenserian, and Shakespearean sonnets. But beyond the strictures of form, sonnets usually pose a question of a sort, explore the ideas raised by the question, and then come to a conclusion. In a way, they are essays written in verse! This means you can write a “sonnet” that doesn’t have meet all of the traditional formal elements, but still functions as a mini-essay of a sort. The main point is to keep your poem tight, not rangy, and to use the shorter confines of the form to fuel the poem’s energy. As Wordsworth put it, in a very formal sonnet indeed, “Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room.”

That’s a lot to achieve in a day, especially a Saturday, so I’ve gone back and dabbled with one I tried earlier this year, iambic pentameter/Shakespearean. It probably needs more tweaking – but here’s today’s version.

Voyage

A ship in harbour, cradled, creaking, warm,
its ropes secured to twisted wooden staves –
we shelter from the darkening winter storm
and rock upon the whispering, slumbering waves.
A candle’s glow lights up the cabin walls
and flickers in the circle of our love;
as we link hands the evening shadow falls
and seagulls cry in rigging high above.
They cry that this is not their way to live,
that trackless ocean waits to show us more,
that danger, joy and sorrow it will give
when we set sail for distant, unknown shore.
The harbour gate yawns wide as we slip free
to seek adventure on the open sea.

Prompt 22 – a poem in honour of Earth Day

22 Friday Apr 2016

Posted by Christine Cochrane in NaPoWriMo 30 Poems in 30 Days April 2016

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Aaron Copland, And God created great whales, Hovhanness, NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo

Today’s prompt comes to us from Gloria Gonsalves, who also suggested our prompt for Day Seven. Today, Gloria challenges us all to write a poem in honor of Earth Day. This could be about your own backyard, a national park, or anything from a maple tree to a humpback whale.

I took my inspiration from the whales mentioned in the prompt.  The opening line (from Genesis 1:21) appears in Copland’s choral piece ‘In the Beginning’ and is also the title of a symphonic poem for orchestra with recorded whale sounds by the American composer Alan Hovhanness.  This line, which has its own music, led me into a poem which has the tone of fable.

Whalesong

and God created great whales
who knew they would
inherit the earth.

they touched the salt space
sang to the sun and
silver moon above.

they watched hues turn
from light to dark and knew
the earth turned.

and they turned from
the winds of the land,
the songs of man –

they sang their own song
slipped through smooth waters,
swam in harmony.

For those who would like to explore some interesting sounds, here’s a link to the Hovhanness piece https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjwUClT4RT8

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