NaPoWriMo Day 30: Two exercises in 'Turning Poems Inside Out'

Today's challenge is to "find a shortish poem,...rewrite each line, replacing .. as many words as you can with words that mean the opposite. For example, ... turn “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” to “I won’t contrast you with a winter’s night.” Your first draft of this kind of opposite poem will likely need a little polishing, (But is) a fun way to respond to a poem (and learn) how that poem’s rhetorical strategies really work. (... sort of like taking a radio apart and putting it back together, but for poetry). "  I'll try a couple very short ones, by Burns and Sandburg:  Oh-oh, the natural result of writing a sort of opposite for positive, or at least neutral, thoughts is going to be negative, right?  Unnhhh I hate to end NaPoWriMo month on such a somber note, but end I will.  Time to let these efforts rest for awhile, then take them down for future possible revisions...It has been a fun, challenging, sometimes frustrating, deadline-delaying, month.  Kept me on my toes, addressing my long-standing, short term goal of faithful writing practice.  And practice is has been.  Thank you, NaPoWriMo, and all my readers.  Your comments have been heartening -- as in, 'take heart.'  Oh, which day was my favorite, you ask?  Day 21,"It's not the cake," hands down, when the challenge was to write new fortune cookie messages.  Which was yours?

Fog                                                   Sun behind bars

BY CARL SANDBURG                                                                           BY SHIRLEY SMITH FRANKLIN

THE fog comes                                                            Broad daylight strides

on little cat feet.                                                          on giant, lion's paws,

It sits looking                                                              Paces, restless, 

over harbor and city                                                  stares at face and hands

on silent haunches                                                     with jaw-cracking roar,

and then moves on.                                                   never leaves its cage.

________________________________________________________________

Pippa's Song                                                    Bubba's Bawling            

by Robert Browning                                       by Shirley Smith Franklin

The year's at the spring,                               The day is spent,   

And day's at the morn,                                  and a year's almost gone,

Morning's at seven,                                        evening's just begun,

The hill-side's dew pearl'd'                           the pavement's dirty gray.

The lark's on the wing'                                  the worm turns underground,

The snail's on the thorn;                               the shadow's on the flower;

God's in His heaven--                                   Satan stalks abroad--

All's right with the world!                            all hell will soon break loose!

NaPoWriMo Day 29: In My Language, That Means...

Today's NaPoWriMo challenge is to "try writing poems that contain at least five words in other languages...a poem that takes place in a foreign country or, a poem based on overheard conversation (inclusive of foreign words)...(possibly digging) deep into what you remember from high-school Spanish, or (using) a dictionary to translate a few interesting words into other languages, (even) drop a Mohrrübe or an asciugamano into your work today (even if it seems de trop. )"  A variation on the challenge:  I get to thinking of different meanings of the same or similar groups of phonemes in the Telugu language of south India, Finnish, and/or English...here's a start on that idea: 

In My Language That Means

Kukka blooms in the arctic spring,
while my brother's fancifully named 'Kukka'
is bound-ifully unaware
that his name in Telugu
means no more than his species:
DOG.

"Isn't that sweet," chortles my daughter,
"Uncle said the aunties and uncles
were concerned about my dating;
because they don't want anybody
to spoil my personality," but her smile
quickly becomes uber serious
when she learns: the p word
in Telugu land means 'body."
                    ------------- by S.S.Franklin
In the meantime, the original day 29 challenge, simply to incorporate a handful of foreign language words in a poem,  appears to be a way to enrich yesterday's musing on the color white, so let me go back to day 28th's poem, and explore that variation.  (tbcontinued later...)

NaPoWriMo Day 28: A Poem of Colors

Today's challenge is to to pick a color, write down,synonyms for it (e.g., green, chartreuse, olive, veridian), specific mood associations for it (e.g., red = passion, rage, blue = hope, truth).  And then note everything in sight (on a walk or looking around your room) of the chosen color. Then start writing, using the color as a guide.  My rough draft here could use a lot of work crafting those suggestions into this 'start...' perhaps from the perspective of an older person, remembering, perhaps, or forgetting...Or perhaps it is the prelude to another ghazal??...


                                                                 White

                                  White: the color of me
                                                    the color of everything  
                                                           the color of nothing       
                                  God created the world
                                                    in a burst of light
                                                           and everything was white
                                  A meeting in the dark of the moon
                                                    when stars were the only light
                                                           reflected in the wine.
                                  No matter now, a milky way
                                                    blurs the night, truth blurs
                                                             and fades from white to gray.
                                 The jasmine, and the daisy  
                                                    fragrant, visual reminders
                                                             of light that has gone away.
                                  A  new blank page, another day
                                                    with less and less truth to say,
                                                             fading, blurring, white to gray,
                                 I am mother of all colors,
                                                   mother color of everything, 
                                                             signifying nothing, yet
                                 the color of
                                                  possibility.
                                                                    ------Shirley Smith Franklin
                                                              

NaPoWriMo Day 24: Anagrams and random lines

Today's challenge is to write a poem using only words that can be generated (on the web) from the letters of my name, using each letter no more often than in my name.  I try 'Shirley Smith Franklin' and come up with over 700 phrases using all the letters, with words, some of which I would rather not use to describe myself.  I try only 'Shirley' and come up with only ten, out of which I select  'His Lyre,' 'hers shy limit,' and  but with 'Shirley Smith' I've struck gold...and I select  "Relish thy Ism."  At first I'd assumed having to use whole phrases...but, after reading others' creations today,  I see--why not individual anagrammatic words as well. Still, the result is just something of a 'beater.'  I revised twice, and will let it pass, now, as 'practice.'...

Shirleyisms:  Her Shy Limit

Mis Shy lists rhymes
her rhymes relish mirth
this mirth stirs style
stylish rhymes hie rhythm
her rhythms stir hermits
the hermits trim limits
their limits list heirs
the heirs sit, stylish
trim, relish simile.
She smiles.

Relish thy isms.
(She is His Lyre.)
                                by Shirley Smith Franklin

NaPoWRiMo Day 27: To Be You

Today's challenge was to take a famous saying (I chose "To thine own self be true, etc..."), google the first three words, and write a poem with words mined from the first couple pages of results.  Mine is:

To Be You

Get, through thine own group,
brevity of information,
truly understanding both day
and night's commands.
Be yourself in a primitive society.
Promotion deceives.
Genuine confidence,
vitality, trust, make your path straight.
Start out with brief, underlying tenets,
but be true to the understanding of a child.
Greatness weighs breathless upon honor,
being merely yourself,
wonderfully, thankfully,
just plain, you.

                       --Shirley Smith Franklin

NaPoWriMo Day 26: "Fast Food," Two Erasure Poems, A silly assignment

Today's NapoWriMo challenge starts: "Back in 1977, the poet Ronald Johnson first published RADIOS, an “erasure” of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Basically, Johnson took a copy of Milton’s long poem, and systematically erased whole words and even lines, while maintaining the relative position of the remaining words. . Today, (the challenge is) to perform an erasure of your own. You don’t need to start with a poem as long as Paradise Lost, of course, but a tolerably long poem is usually needed to furnish enough material so that the final product isn’t just a few words long (though erasure haiku might be a fun new subgenre). ...You can form a whole new poem just by taking words away! Once you’re done, you can leave the spaces as they are ..., or take the left-over words and keep playing with them, reforming new poems from them."   I choose to erase  and replace random words--nouns, adjectives, verbs-- in Rosetti's 'To a Caterpillar'.

Rosetti’s Poem                                  “Fast Food” by SSF

Brown and furry                                 Yellow and mellow

Caterpillar in a hurry                         fast food in a hurry,

Take your walk                                  take your pick

To the shady leaf, or stalk                of a hamburger, or hot dog

Or what not,                                        on a stick,

Which may be the chosen spot.       If your fav’rite choice isn’t something hot.
No toad spy you,                               No server will ply you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you  Nor ready waitress pass by you,
spin and die,                                      Eat, repeat,
To live again, a butterfly.                  You'll have another chance to eat.

Or, to be short, the haiku, erase-only version: 

                              And, take your chosen
                              what-not,
                              you by you again.

                           
Erasure poems based on Rosetti’s “To a Caterpillar”, by Shirley Smith Franklin

NaPoWriMo Day 25: Ballad of Spring Beginning - Just Another Rough Draft -- if you please.

Today’s challenge is to "try another musical form — the ballad. Traditionally, ballads were rhymed poems that told a story of some kind, and were often set to music. They were sometimes set in four-line verses, with an ABAB rhyme pattern, employing alternating 8 and 6 syllable, iambic lines. This 8/6 iambic pattern is sometimes referred to as ballad meter. The use of this type of pattern was not universal, however, and old ballads often involve different syllable counts, as well as refrains that break up the verses.
The form has generated many sub-genres over the years, including the sentimental ballad (think “Danny Boy“), the gruesome murder ballad, and of course, the power ballad. The form’s come a long way from the folk songs with which it began, but the narrative aspect of the ballad remains intact.
Your ballad could be sad, or funny. It could tell a tale of love, or murder, or just something silly..."

Here's my rough draft of a ballad about how spring returns gradually among returning birds, northern-winter housebound neighbors, and growing things.  I'll have to go some to coax it into visuals and rhymes  to awaken the senses...The last verse could potentially be used as a refrain.

The first sounds of spring are
piercing, querrelous, scolding, sad,
busy conversations as new
bird families establish their homes.

The walkers come out first
accompanying their dogs who
eagerly discover
their usual places near trees.

New neighbors start to be
familiar faces, old neighbors
compare their garden plans
children get out their bikes, or run.

When tired grass becomes green,
flowers, and buds on trees are seen,
when cardinal calls out,
so boisterouly to his mate,

Robin cocks his soft head
at worms as they turn, and the
chickadee calls to all
who will listen, "It's spring, it's spring!"