Category: Poetry Prompts

#2021NPM April 7: Adelanto/A Day's Journey

4/7/2021

Welcome to 2021 National Poetry Month. It's my fifteenth year of participating (some years better than others).
This year I'm taking a look at some previous poems that I enjoyed and will be revising. Some have been on the blog before and others not.
I have five great interviews lined up:
April 2 POETRY FRIDAY: ALLAN WOLF
April 9 POETRY FRIDAY: LISA FIPPS
April 16 POETRY FRIDAY: CHRIS BARON
April 23 POETRY FRIDAY:
JOANNE ROSSMASSLER FRITZ
April 30 POETRY FRIDAY: LITA JUDGE

I love getting books into the hands of readers so there will be prizes for stopping by and saying hi.

This is a poem that was drafted in 1995. In 2009, I revised the poem based on a prompt about food associations. Below "Adelanto" is the redux of the poem. It is also the word for Day 6: journey, of the prompts from Oregon Writers' Colony.

Adelanto
Rancho t lined in palm trees
Snakelike San Bernardino Mountain Pass
Sage foothills, Joshua tree desert
Foot fights with younger brother
Butterfly stomach
on windy, carnival road
Highway food stand
Purchased black, green olives
minutes from Adelanto
Desert white masonry brick house
Eucalyptus and castor trees
lined gravel driveway
Cool refuge from a sweltering sun
Great aunts, aprons on
Busy ricing potatoes
Great uncle hugged nonstop
Bleu cheese, tomato soup
Bubbled through cauliflower
Table set for a feast
Sun porch swing
Rocked me until
Eyelids slammed shut
Starlit night debuts
on black damask
Fairy lights twinkle far off
a day’s journey
© jone rush macculloch, draft, 2009

REDUX
A Day’s Journey
Begin in the car, driving
through palm trees lined Rancho Cucamonga
through a snakelike San Bernardino Mountain Pass
through sage foothills, Joshua tree desert

Butterflies hatch in my stomach
on windy, up and down road
Foot fights with brother, he always winning
A pit stop on the roadside, with car door privacy

As if a mirage, a desert white masonry house
appearswith eucalyptus and castor trees
lining the gravel driveway, providing
cool refuge from a sweltering sun

Great aunts, aprons on, busy ricing potatoes
Great uncle passing hugs to us all
Bleu cheese, turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls
reach my stomach, rumbling, set the butterflies free

Bone china and good silver graces
the table. Feast ready while Susie,
the cocker, wanders underfoot.
the blessing, the passing food to the right

After dinner, sunporch swing rocks me
eyelids shutter until a starlit night debut
on black damask and fairy lights
a day’s journey
© jone rush macculloch, draft, 2021

#2021NPM: Verse of Ages

4/3/2021

Taking a moment to promote a great idea. I belong to Oregon Writer's Colony. For years, my friend Susan Balckaby has organized a wonderful poetry event, Verse of Ages. When I was teaching and had my "Poetry Rocks" group, we performed at the event.
This last year has changed how we do things. Susan has put together a list of words to generate poems:

Floating
Pathway
Ignite
Blessing
Catch
Journey
Baffle
Sharp
Hazy
Answer
Capture
Grace
Fortune
Essence
Dancing
Linger
Heart
Margin
Nimble
Scatter
Pace
Venture
Wonder
Kettle
Oxygen
Risin
Satchel
Quest
Caution
Thrill

There are no rules, just guidelines, including the following suggestions:
·   Use the word-of-the-day in a poem.
·   Free associate to see where the word takes you.
·   Build a web of connected ideas and images to spark an idea.
·   Change the word’s part of speech.
·     Use the word to build a compound word.
·   Brainstorm a list of rhyming words, slant rhymes, words that repeat the consonant sounds, words that repeat the vowel sounds.
·     Explore the word’s synonyms and antonyms.
·     Dig through a Thesaurus or mine the adjacent words in a dictionary.
·     Combine words on consecutive days and work two or more into a single poem.

Short or long; formal, blank, or free verse; topical or fanciful or anything in between—your choice. Wind up your imagination and let it spin.

Word is there may be an informal Zoom gathering on May 4.

#2021NPM April 7: Adelanto/A Day's Journey

#2021NPM: Verse of Ages

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