poetry

Cortege (a poem)

2015/05/27 — Leave a comment

Today’s prompt in The Daily Poet, by Kelli Russell Agodon and Martha Silano is to write in a different way than usual, whether that be in a different form or style, using different imagery or words, etc. The poem I wrote just before this one probably achieves that goal more successfully—but I like this one better. It was inspired by a couple of Jon Hassell pieces (Last Night the Moon Came and Amsterdam Blue (Cortege)) I was listening to on Pandora…

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The truth of the matter (a poem)

2015/05/21 — Leave a comment

This is my second time using the Langston’s Titles prompt in The Daily Poet, by Kelli Russell Agodon and Martha Silano. The prompt presents the titles of a number of poems by Langston Hughes; the challenge is to use eight or more of them in a poem. The poem is to be about ‘something beautiful or something you wish would happen’, but I wanted to avoid using any of the same titles I used in last year’s poem, so it ended up being something different…

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An episode from the summer of ’87 (a poem)

2015/05/20 — Leave a comment

Today’s prompt in The Daily Poet, by Kelli Russell Agodon and Martha Silano is one of the more interesting ones in the book. At first, it bugged me, but now I see it as having its own peculiar beauty. To mark the anniversary of the death of Gilda Radner, the idea is to think about her Emily Litella character, and write a poem that includes words or phrases that you have misheard. Unfortunately, they got their Gilda characters mixed up, and referenced Roseanne Roseannadanna (as Rosanna Rosanna Danna) instead. All very meta, as the kids might say.

Anyway, I chose instead to revisit an episode that began with me misunderstanding a conversation that took place in the next room…

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