Welcome back, all! Today marks the halfway point of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant today is Strangelander2015, where you will find not one, but three clerihews for Day 14.

Today’s interview is with Kaveh Akbar, who is not only a wonderful poet in his own right, but the editor of a journal devoted to interviewing poets! You can find examples of his work here, and here, and here.

Last, but not least, here’s our prompt for the day (optional, as always!). Because we’re halfway through NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that reflects on the nature of being in the middle of something. The poem could be about being on a journey and stopping for a break, or the gap between something half-done and all-done. Half a loaf is supposedly better than none, but what’s the difference between half of a very large loaf and all of a very small one? Let your mind wander into the middle distance, betwixt the beginning of things and the end. Hopefully, you will find some poetry there!

Happy writing!

Happy second Friday of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo, everyone! We’re now a whole two weeks into the month – time flies when you’re writing poetry.

Our featured participant today is Clairvetica, where the ghazal for Day 13 is a mixed-emotions ode to London.

Today’s interview is with Troy Jollimore. A poet whose work often has a philosophical bent, he won the National Book Critics Circle award for his first book, Tom Thomson in Purgatory. You can find three of Jollimore’s poems here and four more here.

Last but not least, our prompt! Because it’s Friday, let’s keep it light and silly today, with a clerihew. This is a four line poem biographical poem that satirizes a famous person. Here’s one I just made up:

Emily Dickinson
wasn’t a fickle one.
Having settled in Amherst,
she wouldn’t be dispersed.

Is it going to win a Pulitzer prize? Nope – but it was fun to write!

Happy writing!

Hello, all! Today is the 13th day of NaPoWriMo. I hope you have at least a dozen poems under your belt, and that your writing practice is going strong. Also, apologies for the late post today! We had a little snafu with our post-scheduling software.

Today’s featured participant is Jane Dougherty writes, where the alliterative/assonant poem for Day Twelve is wistful and lilting.

Our interview today is with Evie Shockley. Originally from Tennessee, Shockley is the author of two books of poetry, and is at home with both formal verse and more experimental lyrics. You can watch a video of Shockley giving a poetry reading here, and you can read some of her poems here.

And now for our (optional) prompt. Today’s is an oldie-but-a-goody: the ghazal. The form was originally developed in Arabic and Persian poetry, but has become increasingly used in English, after being popularized by poets including Agha Shahid Ali. A ghazal is formed of couplets, each of which is its own complete statement. Both lined of the first couplet end with the same phrae or end-word, and that end-word is also repeated at the end of each couplet. If you’re really feeling inspired, you can also attempt to incorporate internal rhymes and a reference to your own name in the final couplet. Here are a few examples – Evie Shockley’s “where you are planted,” Ali’s “Tonight,” and Patricia Smith’s “Hip Hop Ghazal.”

Happy writing!

Hello, everyone, and welcome back for Day 12 of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant today is Tidbits by Shannon, where the “Bop” poem for Day 11 invites us to do the attractively unthinkable.

Today’s interviewee is Ocean Vuong, a Vietnamese-American poet raised in Hartford, Connecticut. His first book of poems, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, was published last year by Copper Canyon Press. Vuong’s poems incorporate uniquely startling images with a tight attention to sound. You can learn a little more about Vuong here and find examples of his poems here and here.

And finally, here is our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like you to write a poem that explicitly incorporates alliteration (the use of repeated consonant sounds) and assonance (the use of repeated vowel sounds). This doesn’t mean necessarily limiting yourself to a few consonants or vowels, although it could. Even relatively restrained alliteration and assonance can help tighten a poem, with the sounds reinforcing the sense. Need some examples. Here’s Gerard Manley Hopkins showcasing alliteration and assonance on overdrive. And here is a poem with a more restrained approach from Kevin Young.

Happy writing!

Welcome back, all, for the eleventh day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo!

Our featured participant for the day is Unassorted stories, where the poem for Day 9 is a portrait of a mental makeover.

Today, we’re also featuring a 1962 interview with Sylvia Plath. In popular culture, Plath is known for three things: (1) she wrote angry poems, (2) she killed herself, and (3) teenage girls who feel angry and a little gothy read her to feel angrier and a little gothier. But look a little further, and you’ll find a deeply philosophical poet, a master of unusual similes that set the reader rocking back on their heels, and a refuser of obvious or comfortable ideas, particularly about motherhood, femininity, and the reality of existing in a physical body. There’s a lot to learn from her densely layered, uncompromising verse. Looking for a few examples of her work beyond those poems you might have already seen? Here’s one, and another, and another.

And last but not least, here’s our (optional) prompt for the day: the Bop. The invention of poet Afaa Michael Weaver, the Bop is a kind of combination sonnet + song. Like a Shakespearan sonnet, it introduces, discusses, and then solves (or fails to solve) a problem. Like a song, it relies on refrains and repetition. In the basic Bop poem, a six-line stanza introduces the problem, and is followed by a one-line refrain. The next, eight-line stanza discusses and develops the problem, and is again followed by the one-line refrain. Then, another six-line stanza resolves or concludes the problem, and is again followed by the refrain. Here’s an example of a Bop poem written by Weaver, and here’s another by the poet Ravi Shankar.

Happy writing!

Hello, everyone! Today we’re one-third of the way through NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo. Congratulations to everyone who is still going strong on their daily writing. And if you’ve fallen behind, no worries – there’s still plenty of time to catch up.

Our featured participant today is Whimsygizmo’s Blog, where the nine-line poem for Day Nine tells us how to capture the moon!

Today’s interview is with former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey. She has written four books of poetry, including Native Guard, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007, and a book of creative non-fiction, Beyond Katrina. Trethewey’s work draws from both her own family history and the history of the Gulf Coast where she was born. You can find a selection of her poems here.

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that is a portrait of someone important to you. It doesn’t need to focus so much on what a person looks (or looked) like, as what they are or were. If you need inspiration, here’s one of my favorite portrait poems.

Happy writing!

Happy Sunday, everyone, and happy ninth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant for the day is Ordinary Average Thoughts, where the repetition poem for Day Eight completely cracked me up.

Today, our interview is with Thomas Lux. When he passed away earlier this year, he was the author of twenty books of poetry. Known for his sardonic verse (titles of his books include Pecked To Death By Swans and Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy), Lux taught for many years at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, as well as in other writing programs around the country. You can read more about Lux here, and find examples of his poems here and here.

Finally, here is our prompt (optional, as always). Because today is the ninth day of NaPoWriMo, I’d like to challenge you to write a nine-line poem. Although the fourteen-line sonnet is often considered the “baseline” form of verse in English, Sir Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene using a nine-line form of his own devising, and poetry in other languages (French, most particularly) has always taken advantage of nine-line forms. You can find information of various ways of organizing rhyme schemes, meters, etcetera for nine-line works here. And of course, you can always eschew such conventions entirely, and opt to be a free-verse nine-line poet.

Happy writing!

Hello, all, and welcome back for the second week of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo!

Today, our featured participant is Summer Blues, where the fortuitous poem for Day Seven is full of mystery.

Our interviewee for the day is Dorothea Lasky. The interview we’ve linked came out at the same time as her first book, but since then, Lasky has published two additional books. You can find more on Lasky’s work and some of her poems here and a sampler of her early poems here.

And now for our (optional) prompt. Today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that relies on repetition. It can be repetition of a phrase, or just a word. Need a couple of examples? Try “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe, or Joy Harjo’s “She Had Some Horses”. Poe’s poem creates a relentless, clanging effect through the repetition of the word “bells,” while Harjo’s repeated use of the phrase “she had some horses” and variations thereof gives her poem poem its incantatory effect, while also deepening its central philosophical conceit of what things are the same and what things are different.

Happy Writing!

Hello, everyone! Today marks one full week of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo. I hope you are settling into your poetry-writing groove.

Our featured participant today is Smoke words every day, where the multiple-viewpoints poem for Day Six could be called “Five Reasons to Put Down Your Phone Already.”

Today’s interview is with Li Young Lee. Lee’s first book of poetry, Rose, is a staple in creative writing courses. You can learn more about Lee here, and read a number of his poems here.

Finally, our prompt for the day (optional as always) comes to us from Elizabeth Boquet of Oaks to Acorns. In keeping with the fact that it’s the seventh day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo, Elizabeth and I challenge you to write a poem about luck and fortuitousness. For inspiration, take a look at Charles Simic’s “The Betrothal” and Stephen Dunn’s “The Arm”. Need something more? Perhaps these instructions from Elizabeth will get you going!

Create the following lists:

1. List 1 – 3 random objects. (Smaller tends to be better.)
2. List 1 – 3 random but specific locations. (Think in the cookie jar, or under my seat…)
3. List 1 – 2 objects you’ve lost and a few notes on their back-story.
4. List 1- 2 objects you’ve found and few notes on their back-story.

Now, choose an object from List 1, a location from List 2, and connect them in a poem with ideas from Lists 3 & 4 and Voilà! A fortuitous poem! As an example of a finished “fortuitous” poem, here is Elizabeth’s own “State of Grace”.

Happy writing!

Welcome back, everyone, to Day Six of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo.

Today, our featured participant is Blymey Rhymies, where the Mary Oliver-inspired poem for Day Five reads a bit like Mary Oliver as reinterpreted by Edward Lear with a side of Lemony Snicket.

Today’s interview is with Alex Dimitrov, a Bulgarian-born poet living in New York. He’s the author of two books of poetry, most recently Together and by Ourselves, out in just a few days from Copper Canyon Press. You can read the title poem here and some more of Dimitrov’s work here.

And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that looks at the same thing from various points of view. The most famous poem of this type is probably Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”. You don’t need to have thirteen ways of looking at something – just a few will do!
Happy writing!