Ruchira's Ramblings

NaPoWriMo Day 30. And we're here at last. 2nd NaPoWriMo successfully completed. Prompt from napowrimo.net for the day was to write a minimalist poem. Thank you NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2019 for the interesting mix of prompts. And thanks to Airplane Poetry Movement for teaching me I could do it. We all miss you guys.

NaPoWriMo Day 29. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to produce a poem that meditates, from a position of tranquility, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try including a dramatic, declarative statement or you might try addressing your feeling directly, as if it were a person you could talk to." 1 more to go. Yeah, we did it. Almost!

NaPoWriMo Day 28. Prompt from napowrimo.net: Write a metapoem or a poem about poetry.

NaPoWriMo Day 27. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "I’d like to challenge you to remix a Shakespearean sonnet. You can pick a line you like & use it as the genesis for a new poem. Or make a “word bank” out of a sonnet, and tlry to build a new poem using the same words (or mostly the same words) as are in the poem. Or you could try to write a new poem that expresses the same idea as one of Shakespeare’s sonnets..." I don't know if I got that remix vibe right but I did enjoy writing this one. Thank you for reading. 

The prompt from napowrimo.net for Day 26 was to write a poem using repetitions. 

NaPoWriMo Day 25. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "...I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that: Is specific to a season, uses imagery that relates to all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell), includes a rhetorical question, (like Keats’ “where are the songs of spring?”)". I love writing about the rain, but I generally don't engage the senses so this was an interesting prompt.  Favourite subject but different approach. How do you think I did? Do let me know. Love,

NaPoWriMo Day 24. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today’s prompt is to write a poem that is inspired by a reference book. Locate a dictionary, thesaurus, or encyclopedia, open it at random, and consider the two pages in front of you to be your inspirational playground for the day.". The book I opened was the  'Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms'. And I thought I would give the villanelle form another shot. 

NaPoWriMo Day 23. Prompt from napowrimo.net for today was to write a poem about an animal. But then I came across @the.riya.roy (Check her out on Instagram) who had shared a poem she wrote for last year's poetry challenge, in response  to a prompt from Airplane Poetry Movement who had asked us to write a pantoum. So I thought, why not put the two things together and see what happens? N.B: My attempt is a rather loose interpretation of the pantoum structure where the 2nd & 4th lines of a preceding stanza are not necessarily exactly repeated in the 1st and 3rd lines of the succeeding one. But this was fun to write.  And now for some other stuff. First, my poem  'Scent ' is now up on Issue 7 of the Minute Magazine . You can also check out the podcast version of it on Soundcloud , iTunes or Spotify . Finally, last plug of the day, if you've not already read it, please check out my Antarctica travelogue . Pretty please? I love you. Thanks for ...

NaPoWriMo Day 22. Prompt from  "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that engages with another art form..." The trouble with this poem is exactly the trouble of conveying an idea through words. Music is spontaneous. Colours are visceral, but words are made up things that you have work to string together to create coherence. But I guess the poetry is in the trying. Thanks for reading.

Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates wild, surreal images. Try to play around with writing that doesn’t make formal sense, but which engages all the senses and involves dream-logic. On a related note, I have a poem in the recently published Issue 7 of Minute Magazine. You can check it out here .

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 20. Conversation Poems.  Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that 'talks.' Try to write a poem grounded in language as it is spoken – not necessarily the grand, dramatic speech of a monologue or play, but the messy, fractured, slangy way people speak in real life. ...the idea here is to get away from formally 'poetic' speech and into the way language tends to work out loud." My first try, the prose poem is something that began to form in my head last night when I was struggling with the alphabet prompt.  The second poem I conceived this morning when I was doing my morning paper while thinking about the prompt. I tried to write only the second, but the first one insisted on being written.  Then I wrote the second anyway.  Have a good Sunday everyone.  The Night King is coming.  And Happy Easter.

NaPoWriMo Day 19. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet. You could write a very strict abecedarian poem, in which there are twenty-six words in alphabetical order, or you could write one in which each line begins with a word that follows the order of the alphabet." I'm going to be straight up honest. Didn't enjoy this prompt because everything seemed force.  The second one was the least forced but then I  don't know how much sense it makes. The trouble with this prompt was for me at least that I had to consider the alphabet before the narrative. And some letters really really don't lend themselves well to a poetic vocabulary. I mean, xylophone, xenophobe, Xerox, X-Ray? Really? Zany and zeitgeist? Still, it's a tough exercise and so hopefully I learned something from it. One of the first words I thought of wi...

NaPoWriMo Day 18. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write an elegy of your own, one in which the abstraction of sadness is communicated not through abstract words, but physical detail."

NaPoWriMo 2019. Day 17.  Take 1. Prompt from napowrimo.net: " Today, I’d like you to challenge you to write a poem that similarly presents a scene from an unusual point of view." Form: Haiku Take 2. Prompt from Winter Tangerine: "You wake to find your doppelganger in your room.  What do they want?" Form: Double Cinquain . Happy Easter Weekend.  Winter is here and Thanos is coming. But don't forget that NaPoWriMo comes first. 😊

NaPoWriMo Day 16. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I challenge you to write a poem that uses the form of a list to defamiliarize the mundane. "

Gee, we're halfway through already. NaPoWriMo Day 15. Prompt from napowrimo.net: Write a dramatic monologue. I realize I am veering into fanfiction territory with this poem but I have always been moved by the fate of Arwen in Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings': "But Arwen went forth from the House, and the light of her eyes was quenched, and it seemed to her people that she had become cold and grey as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Then she said farewell to Eldarion, and to her daughters, and to all whom she had loved; and she went out from the city of Minas Tirith and passed away to the land of Lórien, and dwelt there alone under the fading trees until winter came. Galadriel had passed away and Celeborn was also gone, and the land was silent. There at last when the mallorn-leaves were falling, but spring had not yet come, she laid herself to rest upon Cerin Amroth; and there is her green grave, until the world is changed, and all the ...

NaPoWriMo 2019 Day 14. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Our prompt for the day (optional as always) takes its inspiration from Mali’s poem. As he shows us, there many words in English that sound like other words. For that matter, English has lots of words that look like other words, Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates homophones, homographs, and homonyms, or otherwise makes productive use of English’s ridiculously complex spelling rules and opportunities for mis-hearings and mis-readings. Hoppy wrothing!" So far, this has been the hardest prompt for me. It took me several false starts to get this done, and I don't quite like the end product.  In fact, I seriously considered abandoning today's poem altogether but then I remembered that the point of  NaPoWriMo is to write a poem every single day, even if it is a bad poem. One thing I had decided was that I was not going to write a poem complaining about the English language, be...

NaPoWriMo Day 13. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something mysterious and spooky! Your poem could be about something that is mysterious and spooky in a bad way (like a witch), or mysterious and spooky in a good way (possibly also like a witch? It depends on the witch, I guess!) Or just the everyday, mysterious, spooky quality of being alive." 1st attempt I think I kinda failed the prompt because I didn't do spooky but I was sort of misremembering the prompt while writing so I thought it had to be about magic. So I had to go back and do a quick second. There wasn't much time to think so I went for the quickest gothic tricks in the trade- owls and moonlight. And I thought maybe a little imagist precision might add to that sense of the mystery. I think sometime later I would like to revisit this prompt and see if I can do this spooky business better. For now, you can have this meticulously colored in t...

Of Ordinary Things... The daily (optional) prompt from napowrimo.net today "is based on a dream that the poet Natalie Eilbert had. In the dream, she was taking a poetry workshop in which each student had to bring in two objects from home – one significant and one dull. The students then had to give away or destroy the significant object, and write a poem about loving the dull thing. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about a dull thing that you own, and why (and how) you love it. Alternatively, what would it mean to you to give away or destroy a significant object?" I chose to write about the "dull thing I own".

NaPoWriMo Day 11, prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, taking a leaf from Safia Elhillo’s work, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of origin. Where are you from? Not just geographically, but emotionally, physically, spiritually? Maybe you are from Vikings and the sea and diet coke and angry gulls in parking lots. Maybe you are from gentle hills and angry mothers and dust disappearing down an unpaved road. And having come from there, where are you now? Happy (or at the very least, emotionally engaged) writing!" Safia Elhillo is a beautiful poet but I tried, people. 💁🏻‍♀️

NaPoWriMo Day 10. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that starts from a regional phrase, particularly one to describe a weather phenomenon. " I chose to begin with an approximation of a Bengali phrase for an extremely harsh summer day but also included the British Isles expression (according to a link provided on the NaPoWriMo website) for a rainy day forecast- Noah's Day. Hope you liked this,  thanks for reading. 😘 Also, we now have the first ever photograph of a Black Hole (and it sort of looks like the Eye of Sauron), how cool is that? Next time I have a ring of power, I am throwing it into a Black Hole. One does not simply walk into space, didja say? Ah well, I shall burn those star-bridges when I get there. Also, Mandala Colouring is my new favourite way to procrastinate and I love it. See you tomorrow.

NaPoWriMo Day 9. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Our (optional) prompt for the day asks you to engage in another kind of cross-cultural exercise, as it is inspired by the work of Sei Shonagon, a Japanese writer who lived more than 1000 years ago. She wrote a journal that came to be known as The Pillow Book. In it she recorded daily observations, court gossip, poems, aphorisms, and musings, including lists with titles like “Things That Have Lost Their Power,” “Adorable Things,” and “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster.” Today, I’d like to challenge you to write your own Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide!" I wish I could have made this longer, with more than one list, but I was tired. May be I will rework it later. Thank you for reading. 

NaPoWriMo Day 8. Prompt from napowrimo.net: "Our prompt for the day (optional, as always), is inspired by Maggie Smith’s poem, 'Good Bones'. You may have noted that the central metaphor of “Good Bones” turns on a phrase used by real estate agents. Today, I’d like to challenge you to think about the argot of a particular job or profession, and see how you can incorporate it into a metaphor that governs or drives your poem." Jargon I picked: 'Cut, paste and pray.' This is programmer speak for when you have no solution except copying someone's code from the internet and hoping it works. I do think it's a bit like life. Thank you for reading.

If wishes were horses... Napowrimo2019 Day 7 prompt from napowrimo.net: "Our prompt for the day (optional, as always) is inspired by Rachel McKibbens, who posted these thoughts on her Twitter account a few months back: 'What do you deserve? Name it. All of it. What are you ready to let go of? Name that too. Then name the most gentle gift for yourself. Name the brightest song your body’s ever held. Summon joy like you would a child; call it home. It wanders, yes. But it’s still yours.' Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of gifts and joy. What would you give yourself, if you could have anything? What would you give someone else?" Happy wishing to all of you.

Napowrimo2019 Day 6 prompt from napowrimo.net: ""Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem of the possible. ... a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world. "  I prefer my poems to be more neatly structured, but this is what I have got for today. Also, I have a travelogue published by TravelAndy, which you can check out here .