Day Thirty

Well, it’s happened again. We’ve come to the last day of another National/Global Poetry Writing Month. We’ll be back tomorrow with a final featured participant and some housekeeping details, but in the meantime, congratulations to all who have made it to the end! And if your output has tapered off or been spotty — no worries! The best thing about Na/GloPoWriMo is that every day you write a poem, you get a poem-shaped prize.

Our featured participant today is words with ruth, where you’ll find a complex, tender response to Day 29’s past-and-present prompt.

Our final feature resource is poet and professor Judy Jordan’s YouTube videos covering individual poems and discussing poetic craft.

And now, here’s this year’s final (optional) prompt. In his poem, “Angels,” Russell Edson speaks of these spiritual warrior-messenger-guardians as if they were a type of endangered animal. Brief as it is, the poem is disorienting in its use of flattened diction, odd similes, and elliptical statements. Today, try writing your own poem that discusses a real or mythical being or profession (demons, firefighters, demonic firefighters) with the same sort of musing yet dispassionate tone.

Happy writing!