'Tween Worlds

You know the Robin Williams line—even if he didn't say it: if you remember the 60s, you weren't really there. But we were really there. Meanwhile Gertrude Stein said: There is no there there. And there you have it as my grannie would say. What Robin should have said: Remembering it is tricky, at best.

I follow a couple of Facebook groups and we've posted collective memory threads from multiple perspectives. Some of my recent blog posts are outtakes from those threads. Sometimes the outtakes gel, sometimes. they're merely placeholders of an idea I might revisit later.

We were reminiscing what it was like growing up between times during those turbulent years. Part of the backstory was the anniversary of the May 4, 1970 Kent State Massacre (which I didn't include). These outtakes are from random fragments that drifted in and out of that series of dialogues.

For some reason, though we lived in the epicenter of this sociological turmoil, it's hard to write about it so, from time to time, I whittle away at it, in search of the through line. Memory's always a work in progress.

I told Colorado poet, Art Goodtimes, a mushroom aficionado, that I had a wild mother who claimed I was an amanita child. As if that explained things. We laughed and blamed the drugs.

However, I was pretty straight, I was also very young. I was 14—a mere 'tweenie at the original 1967 "A Gathering of the Tribes Human Be In" in Golden Gate Park. It was a protest gathering to counter a new California law to make LSD illegal.

Timothy O'Leary famously said from the stage, "Turn on, tune in, drop out" and then came tripping out through the audience to give my mom a hug.

A Beatnik and a Project Artaud painter, my mom was one of the first artists to embrace the hippie movement. She was also one of the first artists to transform and live inside the Hamms Brewery vats—but that's a later story. Mom dragged me through the Haight early and often. Sometimes our worlds intersected. I was a wide-eyed kid trying to take it all in.

(I'm leaping ahead in my story here. The problem with a run-on memory fragment is that it's a challenge to force it to toe the timeline of congruity. Not an easy thing when the 60s' are invoked.) My mom knew Cloud of Cloud House. She got around. She was featured in Whitman McGowan's poem-video, White Folks Was Once Wild Too. That's her dancing around the bonfire.

I didn't know it at the time, but I was meeting future mentors of our generation: Richard Alpert "Ram Dass"), Allen Ginsberg, who chanted mantras, Gary Snyder, Lenore Kandel, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Jerry Rubin. Most of the bands who played were near neighbors: Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

I grew up between worlds and times in the San Geronimo Valley, a rural enclave which was rapidly becoming an alternative lifestyle destination. A lot of interesting folks shunned the cities and suburbs wound up in The Valley, as it was called. It was an uneasy marriage of radically different worlds.

I attended Lagunitas School District—LSD ('splains a lot). I was straddling the old redneck ranchers' world (living with my Irish Victorian grannie), and the Flower Children dancing in the dawn of a New Age—and me, trying to toe the mutable line. Not an easy task. 

During the late 60s, I attended Sir Francis Drake High School—the only high school (emphasis on the word high) in the nation to shut down a local draft board. 

We were a pretty radicalized group of kids. Our class president was Jared Rossman from Fairfax. That last name shoulld ring a bell—as in his older brother, Michael Rossman, a key figure in the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in 1964. When we shut down the San Rafael Draft Board, we made the cover of Time Magazine and the 6 O'Clock news. And gave the FBI a new client list.

When the school district took away our buses, I was the kid hitching home from school. How I met most of the rock musicians of that era, Ken Kesey and his cast of Merry Pranksters, and boarded Further, etc.

I was living out in rural West Marin and commuting into the suburbs to go to school, holding onto a dual life between worlds while most of my friends were defecting, tuning in and dropping out, and running off with bands or the circus. It was some crazy times. Somehow we grew up between the Be-in, The Summer of Love, and the Kent State Massacre. This was our legacy.

Yes, we were really there. And we do remember. Robert Frost wrote: The best way out is always through. We survived the 'tween years—we could see no other way out but through. What a long, strange trip it's been.



My related blog post

Ken Kesey

Hitching in Marin during late 60s, early 70s

Note bene: for some reason someone, who posted a comment as "Anonymous" took umbrage to this post and wrote "b.s." Of course I didn't publish it—as they didn't bother to sign their name, nor did they say why they thought it was b.s. It's my past I'm writing about, so how is it b.s.? Maybe he thought it was made up. Who knows? Clearly he was full of b.s. for posting it. And so it goes. I invite comment and dialogue, but not b.s.

Pissy Fridge

It's been so hot the past few days, that if I open my refrigerator door too long, it eeks revenge by peeing on the floor.

Yes, eeks. My fridge is a big sissy. Sometimes, it squeaks like a mouse for no real reason. Other times it ekes out a chortle or randomly sighs. Sometimes in the middle of the night it creaks and clacks, like a thief at the door. Shares the shit right outta me.

You'd never know it was a relatively new refrigerator. It piddles. It moans. I mean, how on earth do you house-train a large, awkward white, rather vocal tweenie fridge? There's no drainage bunghole in the back to be unplugged. Can't blame that.

You see, it's one of these newer never-defrost miracle fridges. All the no defrost frost turns into —or more like a squall pounding the lower south 40 section. And here we are, edging into drought season. It's a no-frills fridge, with no discernible water spigot.

My modern no-defrost fridge has some bladder issues. I clean the gaskets, it piddles. I wipe the ceiling and walls down, it dribbles. If I poke under it with a foreign object—say, a broom, it hisses like a snake.

Some days are worse than others. So it has its own dedicated washcloth diaper. The mold has its own life cycle issues. We're not mentioning that one.

I personally think the fridge enjoys wetting the floor—especially after I've just mopped it. Then the fridge sighs and moans. Reminds me of Steve Martin pissing his pants in that movie.

All I can say is that the fridge had better not take up the banjo—or I'll play Deliverance to it all right. Right out the door.

Today, it wet the just-mopped floor as I was standing next to it. All over my foot. I swear it chuckled. But it is a very selective piddler. What drives me nuts is there's no discernible pattern. I think it has control issues.

A friend said It sounds passive aggressive. Or maybe it has some fear issues. She suggested vacuuming under it. Dust bunnies were to blame. Thundering hordes of mice have taken refuge under it—no room for the dust bunnies. Vacuum? Vacuum? Nature abhors a….

What about the freezer, you might ask. It's feckin brilliant. It's the first freezer that doesn't develop glaciers around a dichotomy of thawed ice cream. You need a chainsaw to cut the manly ice cream, it's hard as rock. Wish I could find a man like that. So much hoarfrost forms inside the cartons, I'm thinking of opening a brothel.

Most of the time the fridge sounds like a cross between a gentle wind, a raging sea, or the freeway at rush hour. I think it's hammered on the ammonia-freon mix. As long as I don't have to burp the fridge, or feel it aspirin, I can live with it.

Of course, Neil freaks when he sees water on the floor. You'd think the Hoover Dam had burst. Or that I did it. Me, I mop up after it with a washcloth—I don't want to encourage it.

Beltaine Chickens?

Today's SF Gate headlines blazed: Chickens go up in flames.

A little egg-cessive Beltaine celebrating gone awry in Palo Alto—or an otherwise slow day for the news?

Believe it or not, the Irish Word a Day is Sicín - Chicken.
Ba mhaith liom sicín a ithe.

None dare call it WickerHen.

Owner says hens were probably smoking in the henhouse.

I think the Colonel did it.

Ok, so I just can't help myself—either it's the Monty Python tea that's given me the giggles or the fires raging in SoNapa counties are burning an early bumper crop of something green.

They say it's going to be another drought year.

FOUND POEM

(Sorry I was on the road, and mostly without internet. I'll post the missing prompts  ASAP.)

PAD:  write a casting poem. Casting can take on several meanings, including casting a spell, casting a line (such as in fishing), casting the actors in a play, and I suppose even the act of creating a cast.

NaPoWriMo:  Ronald Johnson took a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, and erased whole words and even lines, while maintaining the relative position of the remaining words. You can see a brief excerpt here.

Today, I challenge you to perform an erasure of your own. You don’t need to start with a poem as long as Paradise Lost, of course, but a tolerably long poem is usually needed to furnish enough material so that the final product isn’t just a few words long (though erasure haiku might be a fun new subgenre). A few long poems that might respond well to erasure could be Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, or Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott. Go ahead and copy and paste the text into a document, and then start whiting-out words. Or make a photocopy of a long poem you like, and mark over words on the copy. You can form a whole new poem just by taking words away! Once you’re done, you can leave the spaces as they are (I rather like the “ghosted” look of all that empty space), or take the left-over words and keep playing with them, reforming new poems from them. Happy writing!

Molly Fisk:  April 27 prompt: These are the moving men

30 Day Poetry Challenge:  Circle all the verbs in a magazine article. Use as many of them as you can to construct a poem. Title your poem with the article's title.

More info on APRIL A POEM A DAY here.

SOUND POEM

PAD: take the phrase “Everyone (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles could include: “Everyone Thinks I’m Crazy,” “Everyone Knows the World Is Round,” “Everyone Needs to Leave Me Alone,” or whatever it is that everyone is doing (or not doing).

NaPoWriMo: Today, let’s try another musical form — the ballad. Traditionally, ballads were rhymed poems that told a story of some kind, and were often set to music. They were sometimes set in four-line verses, with an ABAB rhyme pattern, employing alternating 8 and 6 syllable, iambic lines. This 8/6 iambic pattern is sometimes referred to as ballad meter. The use of this type of pattern was not universal, however, and old ballads often involve different syllable counts, as well as refrains that break up the verses.

The form has generated many sub-genres over the years, including the sentimental ballad (think “Danny Boy“), the gruesome murder ballad, and of course, the power ballad. The form’s come a long way from the folk songs with which it began, but the narrative aspect of the ballad remains intact.

Your ballad could be sad, or funny. It could tell a tale of love, or murder, or just something silly. If you have any musical talent, it might be fun to try and actually make a tune for your ballad! Happy writing.

Molly Fisk: April 25 prompt: The sounds that fish make when no one is listening...

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem inspired by a YouTube video.

AUTO POEM

PAD: write an auto poem. Auto could mean automobile, automatic, automaton, or any number of possibilities.

NaPoWriMo: think about words buried in words. In particular, think about the words buried in your own name. Plug your name into an anagram generator, like this one, and try writing a self-portrait poem using words that are generated. (Don’t worry if it takes a minute or two to generate the anagrams — you’d be surprised how many different ones a name will generate — mine generted 107,144 anagrams, and I didn’t even use my middle name)!

Molly Fisk: April 24 prompt: trees near churches

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Instead of writing a poem, compose it out loud. Use a tape recorder, your smartphone, or have someone else write it down for you. Don’t over think it! Spend no more than 15 minutes “writing.”

NOTE POEM

PAD: Two-for-Tuesday prompt. In fact, this is one I include with every challenge. Here are your options:
Write a love poem.
Write an anti-love poem.

NaPoWriMo: try writing triolets. A triolet is an eight-line poem. All the lines are in iambic tetramenter (for a total of eight syllables per line), and the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines. This means that the poem begins and ends with the same couplet. Beyond this, there is a tight rhyme scheme (helped along by the repetition of lines) — ABaAabAB. Here’s an example by Thomas Hardy:

Birds at Winter

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! – faster
Shutting indoors the crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The Flakes fly faster
And all the berries now are gone!

Triolets were in vogue among the Victorians — all those repetitions can add a sort of melancholy gravitas to a poem, but watch out! They can also make the poem sound oddly gong-like. A playful, satirical poem, on the other hand, can be easily written in the triolet form, especially if you can find a way to make the non-repeating lines slightly change the meaning of the repeated ones.

Molly Fisk: April 23 prompt: short shrift n.
1. Summary, careless treatment; scant attention: These annoying memos will get short shrift from the boss.
2. Quick work.
3. a. A short respite, as from death. (etc.)


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem that fits on a post-it note. Stick it somewhere public. (Don’t forget to take a picture of it before you leave it!)

EARTH DAY POEM

PAD: write a complex poem. Complex is a complex word that can refer to mental state, apartments, difficulty of a situation, and so many other complex situations.

NaPoWriMo: Today is Earth Day. The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 and is now celebrated internationally. In honor of the occasion, I challenge you to write a poem in keeping with Earth Day — it could be a reflection on what’s growing in your garden, a modern pastoral, or a Marianne-Moore-style poem about an animal. Anything to do with the natural world is fair game. Happy writing!

Molly Fisk: April 22 prompt: 50 ways to cook a chicken

30 Day Poetry Challenge:“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” –Hemingway. Write a short poem that is also “truest sentence that you know.”

REVISION POEM

PAD: write a senryu. A senryu is like a haiku with less restrictions and different subject matter. It’s a 3-line poem with a traditional 5/7/5 syllable (or sound) pattern, and the poem typically deals with the human condition. But that’s about all. No cutting words, seasonal words, or focus on nature. In fact, many people who claim to write haiku are already writing senryu.

NaPoWriMo: re-write Frank O’Hara’s Lines for the Fortune Cookies. When I was a kid, I found a fortune cookie recipe, and made the cookies, which were pretty good. But mostly I was attracted to the idea of writing the fortunes. Unfortunately (rimshot, here), I wrote such long ones that they were very difficult to fold up small enough to fit into the cookies! Hopefully, you won’t have that problem — after all, the ideal fortune is a one-liner, and one-liners thrive on a very poetic compactness of expression. This should be a good chance for all of us to practice that, and amusing to boot.

Molly Fisk: April 21 prompt: I gotta see a man about a chainsaw

BAD HAIR DAY
                  —Oh, what a tangled web we weave
                        Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, 1808

Oh great, this morning I awoke

with massive dreadlock issues.

My granny would've dubbed it a mare's nest. 

What was I doing last night, 

dream-cruising with the Hells Angels? 

I contemplate the massive tangle 

strand by matted strand, or rather, twig by twig—

the catalyst from yesterday's losing battle 

with an overgrown crepe myrtle that's been dying for years, 

falls out around me like a deconstructed nest. 

As I crashed about in the underbrush, 

a hummingbird watched with interest. 

Patrolled and scolded me. Form follows form. 

I was flocked with a wreath of crepe myrtle
petals, stained the color of dying royalty, or sorrow.

Time for a Neat's Foot Oil cure,
bottled with enough patience

(really Citre Shine—and where 

was this stuff when I was young?) 

to tame an industrial-sized "kitchen" 

nesting at the back of my neck.

Perhaps I oughta see a man about a chainsaw.

Born with an abundance of impatience,

I once whacked my matted hair off at the nape. 

Shorn of my long locks, I was defrocked. 

I yanked on it to make it grow,

my neck, exposed to the cold, ached.

I saw stars when I looked aside.

My mane is my Familiar, curled on my shoulder
like a ship's cat, or a feathered serpent
hissing protectively down the curve of my spine
to the trinity of sacrum, Ilium, and ischium.

There was so much duff trapped in my hair, 

I had to sweep the floor afterwards.

Soon, the birds will follow like gleaners

to scoop up my hair to line their nests.

5/13

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Modify someone else's poem posted from yesterday’s Creative Commons 2.0 part 1 prompt.

CHANGE POEM

PAD: write a beyond poem. The poem could be beyond human comprehension. It could be from the great beyond. It could be from beyond–another city, country, planet, solar system, dimension, etc. Don’t be afraid to go above and beyond with it.

NaPoWriMo: write a poem that uses at least five of the following words:
owl
generator
abscond
upwind
squander
clove
miraculous
dunderhead
cyclops
willowy
mercurial
seaweed
gutter
non-pareil
artillery
salt
curl
ego
rodomontade
elusive
twice
ghost
cheese
cowbird
truffle
svelte
quahog
bilious

Molly Fisk: April 20 prompt: Worth a Fortune Word of the Day: sibylline

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a short poem about change. (Please know that we'll be using these poems as part of tomorrow's prompt, so please consider this before posting them publicly.)

BURN POEM

PAD: write a burn poem. I actually wrote a poem titled “burn” earlier in this month’s challenge, so I’m going to have to think a little on this to avoid repeating what I’ve already written. However, burn can represent many things–from getting burned by a bad deal (or a friend) to feeling the burn when working out to physically burning from fires.

NaPoWriMo: Write a poem in the form of a personal ad!

Or, if you like, try any kind of want ad. Personal ads, though, do have a kind of poetry to them. The personal ads of the London Review of Books are particularly famous, and have even spawned a book. When I was younger, one of my favorite guilty pleasures was getting a copy of the local alternative newspaper and reading through the personal ads for (a) witty ones and (b) really horrible ones. One of my favorites was a witty one, which went something like this:

Antonymically Correct?
Ham-fisted, vindictive milquetoast seeks ineducable, filthy harridan to castigate, bore, and neglect.

Try and top that, if you like. (Oh, and by the way, the personal ad doesn’t actually have to be about you, of course. Feel free to invent every last thing about it).

Molly Fisk: April 19 prompt: How to control your dreams.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem about something you hold sacred.

COLOR POEM

PAD: take the phrase “I Am (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles might include: “I Am Superman,” “I Am Wonder Woman,” “I Am Out of Nickels,” “I Am Running Low on Patience,” and so on

NaPoWriMo: write a poem that begins and ends with the same word. You could try for something in media res, that begins and ends with “and,” for example. Or maybe “if.” Or perhaps you could really challenge yourself and begin/end your poem with a six-dollar word like “antidisestablishmentarianism.” (Just kidding!) Whatever word you choose, I hope you have fun with it!

Molly Fisk: April 18 prompt: I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread" —from "What Kind of Times are These?" by Adrienne Rich

30 Day Poetry Challenge: What’s your favorite color? Jot down three adjectives that describe that color. What’s your favorite animal? Write three adjectives that describe that animal. What’s your favorite body of water (general or specific)? Jot down three adjectives that describe the feeling it evokes. Now, imagine yourself in a white room, no windows, no doors, no noise. Write down three adjectives that describe the feeling that evokes. Now, write a poem using all of your adjectives in any order

IMPOSSIBLE POEM

When my uncle was a teenager, 
on a dare, he hopped the zoo fence 
and swiped a lone guinea pig. 
He stuck it in his jeans jacket
and brought it home. Aww,
it had babies, so he built a hutch
for his baker's dozen of guinea pigs—
Within months they had litters—and so on. 
He tried to give them away. No such luck.
Picture my uncle trying to thumb a ride
across the Golden Gate Bridge to West Marin
with dozens of guinea pigs wheeking
and chuffing and piddling while chewing
their way to freedom from cardboard boxes.
They ate him out of house & home.
In fact, there were so many guinea pigs, 
that they ate their feces, then they ate 
each other. Too bad he didn't know
any Incas. Roast quwi tastes like chicken.
So one night, my uncle hitchiked out 
to the zoo, climbed back over the fence
laden with boxes of squealing guinea pigs.
The zookeeper must have scratched his head
to find hundreds of guinea pigs in the pen
that weren't there the day before.


(So here's the spillover—yesterday's post leaked over into today's attempt, but Molly's stealing with permission informed the piece. Or maybe it's a volta. Now, what to name it?)



PAD: write an express poem. This might be about an express train or express delivery. It might have something to do with expression painting. However you come at this prompt, be sure to express yourself.

NaPoWriMo: Early on in the month, I asked you to write a valediction — a poem of farewell. Today, let’s try the opposite, and write poems of greeting. There’s lots of things you could greet. The spring? Your new stapler? A favorite classmate? An addition to the menu at your local cafe? The subject’s up to you — now get out there and say “hello!”

Molly Fisk: April 17 prompt: Stealing with permission.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Use volta (a poetic turn) in a poem of any length (it can be a sonnet, or not). For more about the volta: http://bit.ly/IoiYLd.

volta, ( Italian: “turn”) the turn in thought in a sonnet that is often indicated by such initial words as But, Yet, or And yet.

SAVED POEM

PAD: Two-for-Tuesday prompt. Here are your options:
Write a possible poem.
Write an impossible poem.

NaPoWriMo: write a “translation” of a poem in a language you don’t actually know. Go to the Poetry International Language List, pick a language, and then follow it to a poet and a poem. Generally the Poetry International website will present a poem in its original language on the left, and any translation on the right. Cut and paste the original into the text-editing program of your choice (and try not to peek too much at the translation). Now, use the sound and shape of the words and lines to guide you, without worrying too much about whether your translation makes sense.


DOWEN Albertina Soepboer (Frisian)

Hie it hoeden west, miskien hie it net
de rigels fan ús noateskrift skansearre.

It requiem waaide fan ’e flat, ôfdwaalde
fûgelkloft út de triedden om it bytfabryk.

Frissele frijden wy yn azem sûnder fleis.
In hûs fan stien streamde fol, bruts ôf.

It reinde wer. Ik harke nei de twa dowen
yn ús bline stege, fuorre har de triennen.

(MY TAKE)

Here it is, heading west, there's no mistaking it

the rigors of the pen writing samscaras.

It requires wading in, holding the pen flat, like a spade

the only way to carve out a track to lead out back.

The frission it creates when you think you're done

but the pen enters the house of memory at will

Reminding you it harkens a memory of two women

in an abandoned house, furrowing their brows at dusk.

Molly Fisk: April 16: How do you want to be saved?

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Do you find it difficult to express one sense (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) more than others in your writing? Paying special attention to that often ignored sense, write a poem with exaggerated sensory detail.

INFESTED POEM

PAD: write an infested poem. There are many different infestations–from physical infestations to infestations of the heart and soul.

NaPoWriMo: write a pantun. Not a pantoum — though they are related. The pantun is a traditional Malay form, a style of which was later adapted into French and then English as the pantoum. A pantun consists of rhymed quatrains (abab), with 8-12 syllables per line. The first two lines of each quatrain aren’t meant to have a formal, logical link to the second two lines, although the two halves of each quatrain are supposed to have an imaginative or imagistic connection. Here’s an example:

I planted sweet-basil in mid-field.
Grown, it swarmed with ants,
I loved but am not loved,
I am all confused and helpless.*

The associative leap from the first couplet to the second allows for a great deal of surprise and also helps give the poems are very mysterious and lyrical quality. Try your hand at just one quatrain, or a bunch of them, and see how you do!

Molly Fisk: April 15 prompt: Hew paints crickets

30 Day Poetry Challenge Experiment with a poetic form. Break all the rules! Not sure where to start? Check out this list of forms:http://bit.ly/3JIt9K

Link back to APRIL A POEM A DAY info

PERSONA POEM

PAD: write a sonnet. For those who are not familiar with the sonnet, it’s a 14-line poem that rhymes. Some contemporary sonnet-eers even ditch the rhymes and just write a 14-line poem. Go with whatever feels right.

NaPoWriMo: write a persona poem — that is, a poem in the voice of a particular person who isn’t you. But I’d like you to choose a very particular kind of person. How about a poem in the voice of a superhero (or a supervillain)? Comic book characters are very much like mythological characters — they tend to embody big-picture values or personality traits. Good or bad. Loyal or disloyal! (Heck — some comic book characters are mythologial characters — think of Thor). And like mythological characters, superheroes and supervillains let us tap into deep-seated cultural tropes. So go for it. Whether you identify with Batman, Robin or – gulp – the Joker, let’s hear your poems in another voice.

Molly Fisk: April 14 prompt: Waiting for inertia.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Terza rima was created by Italian poet Dante in the late 13th century for his epic poem The Divine Comedy. It’s composed of “tercets woven into a rhyme scheme that requires the end-word of the second line in one tercet to supply the rhyme for the first and third lines in the following tercet.”

It’s sometimes considered too difficult to use this structure in English, but we're going to do it anyway! Today's challenge is to write a poem in terza rima. (You can read more about terza rima here: http://bit.ly/mzBCYi)

COMPARISON POEM

PAD: write a comparison poem. The poem could compare one person with another, or it could compare one thing against itself. Or it could take a comparable direction

NaPoWriMo: take a walk. Make notes — mental or otherwise — on what you see on your walk, and incorporate these notes into your poem. A bit more serene and observational than yesterday, and hopefully a nice, calming poem to begin your weekend with.  They suggested using RhymeZone

Molly Fisk: April 13 prompt: Write an elegy for yourself.



And if that isn't enough check out 30 Day Poetry Challenge on Facebook

An Exquisite Corpse is a way of creating art from random pieces. Submit three words here: http://buff.ly/14XgQnD to be randomly drawn from a jumble and shared/posted by the 30dpc admins.  See this page for word list.

BROKE POEM

Zelda Fitzgerald once said

"Nobody has ever measured,
         not even poets, 

how much the heart can hold."
But sometimes when the heart becomes weary
after the dance of so much benign neglect,

a secret locked in a room of stale promises

shatters like seven years bad luck, 

escapes, mercurial. Leaving us wanting.

The things we envisioned, 

the life we might have lived.
Banking on a future that will never come. 

Instead, we square off, like duelists at dawn

taking measured steps, as if numanistics 

could save us from ourselves and each other

laying blame in the dark attic of the self.





PADI: write a broke poem. The poem could be about a broken record, broken relationship, or someone who is just flat broke (no money).

NaPoWriMo: “write a poem consisting entirely of things you’d like to say, but never would, to a parent, lover, sibling, child, teacher, roommate, best friend, mayor, president, corporate CEO, etc.” Honesty is the best policy, after all, so get it off your chest! And if you’re interested in the complete list of experiments, you can find them all here.

Molly FIsk: April 12 prompt:
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. (Robert Frost)


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a limerick for a stranger. (For more information on the limerick, visit http://bit.ly/q1wV0)



APRIL A POEM A DAY info

NIGHT BLINDNESS

If I had carrots…
I, who left the stars behind
for the city lights

no longer dream of moonlight

in case of insanity.




PAD: take the phrase “In Case of (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write the poem. Possible titles could include “In Case of Emergency,” “In Case of Oversleeping,” “In Case of Snoring,” or something else.

NaPoWriMo: write a tanka. This, like the “American” cinquain, is a poem based on syllables, with the pattern being 5-7-5-7-7. They work best when those final two 7-syllable lines contain a sort of turn or surprise that the first three lines might not wholly anticipate. You can string a bunch of them together to make a multi-stanza poem, or just write one!

To get you going, here’s an anonymous example from the Japanese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth:

On Komochi Mountain,
from the time the young leaves sprout,
until they turn red,
I think I would like to sleep with you.
What do you think of that?

Molly Fisk: April 11 prompt: If I had carrots...


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Find a poem you love. Translate it in some way. It could be from its original language to another. It could be from one voice into another voice. Rewrite something contemporary in a way that makes it sound old or something old into modern English.

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SUFFERING POEM

In his book of dreams he sees her

and he tells himself it's a sure sign

but the suffering that haunts him 

is a burden they can no longer bear

and his darkness seeps in until 

she's adrift, cast off in a flood, 

the surcease of the sea 

relentlessly pounding the shore

offers little solace. 

                   White foam horses

madly galloping on the strand, 

hell bent for the lip of the whirlpool.

The edge of the known world.

PADI write a suffering poem. A person or animal in the poem could be suffering. The poem itself could be suffering.

NaPoWriMo: write an un-love poem

Molly FIsk: April 10 prompt: His book of dreams.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Listen to an excerpt of Joe Brainerd’s “Remember” here: http://buff.ly/14GJb1c Write your own version.

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HUNTER POEM

The dark tramontane winds

laden with rain and sleet 

slaughters spring and small lilies

hunting the light, shrivel in the corm.

PADI: Two-for-Tuesday prompt. Write one of the following (or both):
Write a hunter poem.
Write a hunted poem.

NaPoWriMo: Write a poem inspired by noir — it could be in the voice of a detective, or unravel a mystery, or just describe the long shadows of the skyscrapers in the ever-swirling smog.

Molly Fisk: April 9 prompt: Tramontane \truh-MON-teyn\, adjective:
1. Being or situated beyond the mountains. (The other definitions, including of the noun form, you'll have to look up yourself.)


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem while doing something else.


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Thatcher's Dark Legacy

I don't even begin to understand British politics but from what I can gather, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (PM 1979-1990) brought Britain, Scotland & Wales to their knees.

My Irish grannie, no Anglophile, was always reading and fond of quoting from the Brehon Laws, O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees, and the original 1894 Gaelic League edition of Dinneen's Irish Dictionary—while cursing the Irish equivalent of the devil incarnate, Oliver Cromwell, and current British politics in empty rooms. Such was my education.

Official news reports are extolling the virtues of the Thatcher Years, canonizing her at death, akin to how we whitewashed Governor/President Reagan's sins, then chiding us to not to speak ill of the dead. We Irish Americans have had our fill of revisionist Anglocentric history. Lest ye forget—Thatcher's dark legacy was a "political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown."

Thatcher's key policies, deregulation of the financial sector, the privatization of state-owned companies, and what she called Community Charge (a poll tax), devastated the backbone of the United Kingdom—the working class.

Thatcher ruthlessly and systematically destroyed the social fabric of the welfare state that protected the economic well-being of UK citizens. No wonder Scotland and Wales—hardest hit by Thatcherism—want to secede.

Irish mediator, Miceál Francis O'Hurley reminded me that "We only need remember that Pinochet was her friend to whom she extended protection. Aside from my many reasons as an Irishman to loathe her for just cause, her economic policies devastated several generations of English people." I am also reminded that she was also a good friend of Saddam Hussein. 

O'Hurley (no relation), who once worked on The Hill as a legistlative analyst, before emigrating to Ireland, knows the dirty laundry of Washington politics, jokingly trotted out the dog Latin axiom - semper ubi sububi. 

LOL, dirty laundry indeed. Knickers aside, the argument should support facts, not rely upon false syllogism (read: yellow journalism, or to further degrade the term—FOX News), so what little information I have on Thatcher, was viewed from someone else's warped lens. And so I read it all. But something keeps nagging me as I read the glowing tabloid eulogies.

I loved delving into rhetoric with Dr. Daniel Milia, my Irish professor at UC Berkeley. Indeed, quid est veritas?Brilliant stuff, rhetoric. That's what we employed when we read the medieval Irish manuscripts. What lens?

I am a poet, not a politician. All I can do is read voraciously and deduce until I become myopic. But this adulation makes me uneasy in my soul. All this sweeping under the rug stuff. Rhetoric is a lost art. The ability to lay one's hands, er mind, upon facts, and create a coherent train of thought. 

I am reminded that a filidh, the ancient Irish poet-seer, who was part-diviner, part-healer and part-councilor, was required to have a background in law as well—whether it be the laws of nature or laws of the heart, or the Laws of Bréifne.

O'Hurley stated "There was no contradiction that the land of Brehon laws also was the land of Saints and Scholars. When did we allow the law to be the stuff of fear and loathing and not the refuge of the poor, the widow and the orphan? Our [Irish]"backward ways" gave rights to women, the sick, the poor, etc., (even maternity and paternity leave) with which the West is now only 'discovering.'"

"Along with Reagan, their world view, inflicted through economic policies, bankrupted the poor, impoverished the middle classes, diminished education for all and instituted a regime of economic Darwinism. I admired her courage, and the sincerity of her beliefs— but then the Nazis all were courageous and firm in their beliefs too."

O'Hurley continued: "Historically, truth and facts have had little relation to decision-making. Only consider Joe McCarthy and how he and Tricky Dick Nixon shaped the nation."

Thatcher's Privatisation has been described as "the biggest electoral bribe in history." Thatcher also tried to sell off privatize social medicine, hospitals, waterworks, gas, electricity, etc., in other words: to put publically owned amenities already paid for by the people through taxes—into the hands of private investors so it wouldn't be financial a burden on the government. Sound familiar? The rich got richer under her stewardship. Can you spell Bush?

For many, Thatcher's reign saw the destruction of British industry, when she assaulted and declared civil war on the trade unions (especially coal, and print unions)—what she dubbed, "the enemy within." Then she turned around and privatized all but 15 publicly owned coal mines which left thousands out of work—most notably in Wales.

Under Thatcher's regime, direct taxes on income were lowered and to balance the shortfall, she increased indirect taxes. Meanwhile, working class unemployment (over 3.3 million), skyrocketed through the roof. Trade and industry fell by 38.2%. She hamstrung and garrotted the middle class, then drowned them.

As the recession of the early 1980s spiraled, Thatcher counter-measured by increasing taxes and cutting funding for social services, housing, and education (taking school lunch milk from the children—fergawdsakes—as bad as Reagan's proclaiming katsup as a vegetable). She then completely gutted funding for higher education.

The wholesale loss of employment, mass closure of factories, housing, and loss of basic social services fueled massive race riots in every major city which led to the reinstatement of the Vagrancy Act of 1824 to detain citizens based on "reasonable suspicion" which was heavily enforced in migrant and black communities.

She played the race card during reelection, saying, "People are really afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people of a different culture" which helped spark the 1981 race riots  in London, Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton.

Then during the next decade, Thatcher introduced a per capita "poll tax"(at 20% +) to fund local government in order to—get this—lower the tax burden of large property owners and big businesses. Sound familiar?

When 1.8 million people point-blank refused to pay the head tax, Thatcher enforced draconioan measures, riots ensued. During the Poll Tax Riots, the Battle of Trafalgar, at Trafalgar Square, was among the most violent where hundreds were arrested and incarcerated.

Meanwhile, under Thatcher's regime, interest rates soared, value added tax (VAT) shot up to 15%; and tellingly, by 1990, when she resigned from office, inflation was back at 10%—the same level as when she implemented the reforms in 1979.

A modern day Cromwell, Thatcher's aggression towards Ireland was horiffic; Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said she had done "great hurt to working class communities across Britain and also people in Ireland".

Adams also accused Thatcher of "embracing collusion" and playing a "shameful role" in the IRA hunger strike of 1981. (BBC)

"As De Valera said about Churchill, she was good for the UK, but her policies were not good for Ireland," said Fianan Fail leader, former taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. "She was a unique lady and a formidable lady. She was prime minister for the same length of time that I was. But nothing was achieved towards peace in Northern Ireland during Thatcher's time as prime minister." (Herald)

Thatcher also destroyed basic human rights in Northern Ireland. Catholics were stripped of civil rights. She made political prisoner Bobby Sands, an Irish martyr whose death led to a surge in IRA recruitment. Ironic, isn't it, that on this very day in 1981, Bobby Sands was elected MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone with 30,493 votes—almost 10,000 more votes than British Prime Minister Thatcher received.

(Political prisoner and IRA Hunger Strike leader, Bobby Sands (Roibeárd Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh 1954 – 1981) was arrested in 1976 at age 18, and imprisoned 14 years in the most brutal of British prison camps, the H-Block of Long Kesh—Great Britain's own Gitmo in Belfast, for "illegal possession" of a gun in the boot of a car. Not shooting anyone, or blowing anyone up.)

IRA prisoners had historically been treated differently than common criminals. They were treated as political prisoners. Thatcher’s decision to treat them like ordinary criminals was a disastrous policy measure. It lengthened The Troubles by at least a decade, if not a generation. It led to the inevitability of the hunger strikes and the polarization that followed. (Boston Globe)

Sands' MP election victory raised hopes that a settlement to raise Sands to political prisoner status could be reached—thus restoring basic human rights under the Geneva Convention, but Thatcher took a hard stance, stating that Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal, with no rights— not prisoners of war. Under Thatcher's tenure, Sands was tortured with daily beatings, water-hosing, mental abuse. Sands died in 1981 after 66 days on hunger strike. Said Thatcher, "Mr. Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life." The mother of Joe McDonnell, one of the hunger strikers, said “Criminals don’t starve themselves to death to make a point.”

Boston Globe's Kevin Cullen writes, “Thatcher’s intransigence drove many young men into the waiting arms of the IRA. She was one of the IRA’s best recruiters. She pushed the end of the war back at least 10 years and consigned a generation to conflict.”

My grandmother cried the day Bobby Sands died. The only other time I saw her cry was when Jack Kennedy was shot. It left me shaken to the core. It made me sit up and bear witness.

Ironically, it was Reagan who told Thatcher that "she had to talk to the Irish government"—which led to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. As Nelson Mandela once told Martin McGuinness, “You don’t make peace with your friends. You make peace with your enemies.”(Boston Globe)

Thatcher (bosom friend of Pinochet) denounced Nelson Mandela and the ANC as "grubby little terrorists, while backing South African apartheid. (she later reversed that position when it became economically and politically savvy to abolish Apartheid). 

Thatcher did more to polarize society and create a rift and division between the classes and between oppressors and the oppressed than any other Prime Minister. I won't even mention the Falklands farce—with a thousand dead and 2,500 wounded. For what? Cojones?

Thatcher's policies also foisted us into the first Gulf War (and ultimately to Iraq.) But I'm tired now, so in closing, yes, Thatcher was female, but no feminist. She was not a good role model for women—as Amy Tan's friend posted on Facebook (which got my blood boiling—and led to this diatribe).

Obama said that she had "broken glass ceiling for women." In his Guardian obit, comedian/actor Russell Brand quipped: "Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. She is an icon of individualism, not of feminism."

I fear Thatcher's death has already become a Welshman's holiday replete with epithets of verbal grave dancing.

Across Britain tonight, especially in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton, Thatcher's death is turning into an early Guy Fawkes birthday celebration. And they are gathering at Trafalgar Square. Poetic justice is served.

Twitter reported more than one million mentions of the word "Thatcher" in the four hours after the announcement of the former prime minister's death. (BBC)

"Ding Dong! The witch is dead" has become a national anthem. British filmmaker, Ken Loach “Remember she called Mandela a terrorist and took tea with the torturer and murderer Pinochet. How should we honor her? Let’s privatize her funeral. Put it out to competitive tender and accept the cheapest bid. It’s what she would have wanted.” Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle ‏(@frankieboyle) posted: "Finally, I get to wear my black suit and tap shoes together."

My sweetie in Scotland reports that: "They're also raising flags and having celebratory street parties—especially in the north and mining areas. Thatcher ironically caused the [resurrection of the] Scottish Parliament—in response to her policies that decimated Scotland during her time. The Poll Tax was her final undoing."

Stone-hearted Maggie was ruthless. She was a curious admixture of Iron Lady and Good Old Boys school. She championing warmongers Reagan, Bush & Bushs' worst politics served up with a sidedish of corrupt Wall Street bakers tossed in for good measure.

So tell, me how Thatcher's legacy was a good legacy? I don't understand. I don't wish to speak ill of the dead but I wonder how long will it take to reverse the damage done during Thatcher's reign. Perhaps a generation, more like a lifetime.

In the words of Bobby Sands, "Our revenge will be the laughter of our children."




See my Old Tunes, New Licks for more on Bobby Sands.

Margaret Thatcher and the taboo of speaking ill of the dead Vanessa Barford

The Meaning of Margaret Thatcher, John Molyneux

Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children'

The Irish education of MargaretThatcher, Kevin Cullen

Margaret Thatcher – She Came, She Saw, She Failed “Margaret Thatcher horrified her advisers when she recommended that the government should revive the memory of Oliver Cromwell – dubbed the butcher of Ireland – and encourage tens of thousands of Catholics to leave Ulster for the south.

'Stand Down Margaret': English Beat's Dave Wakeling Reflects on Anti-Thatcher Anthem "Some say Margaret Thatcher broke the glass ceiling for women, but she didn’t. Pretending to be an aristocratic man that liked to bully people is not any essence of feminine power. It was just aping the worst of male power."

Ken Loach Wants Thatcher's Funeral Privatized “Mass Unemployment, factory closures, communities destroyed – this is her legacy. She was a fighter and her enemy was the British working class. Margaret Thatcher was the most divisive and destructive Prime Minister of modern times,” he said.

WANTING POEM

My first boyfriend and I sat in the back row

of the little theater in Olney Hall, 

amidst human skeletons and dinosaur bones

watching a film series on Buckminster Fuller

envisioning our lives, moving back to the land

and when Bucky said: "The minute you begin 

to do what you really want to do, 

it's really a different kind of life."

We stepped into the sultry evening

and walked in beauty like the night

beneath a cloud of jasmine stars

and we believed in what was possible.

So very young, and sure-footed,

we scaled the heights of the tallest summits:
Mt. Whitney, Lyell Glacier, Cloud's Rest.

That summer we traversed the Range of Light,

the Sierras, our bed, the stars our blanket

and in alpine meadows, we made promises 

to the gods, not knowing the price to be paid.

PADI: write an instructional poem. Your instructional poem could list instructions. Or it could capture an instructional moment.

NaPoWriMo: write a poem that has the same first line as another poem. You can use a favorite poem, pick up a random book of poetry and get a first line that way, or perhaps use one of the following:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
She walks in beauty, like the night
Slowly, silently, now the moon
anyone lived in a pretty how town

I have written some poems of this type in the past, and it can be fun to take a well-known first line and do something totally different with it! But if it’s hard for you to shake the original, maybe using a first line from a random poem would be best for you.

Molly Fisk: April 8. "The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life." Buckminster Fuller


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Find a short poem (one page or less) that you love. Cross out every fourth word. Replace the crossed out words with your own choices.


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LIE POEM

(MY TAKE)

The secret to staying asleep at night

is to go to bed late, keeping yourself awake,

but not too stimulated—no good books,

no great movies, or charming lovers.

Reruns will do, but don't forget to set the timer

or you'll waken to the TV blaring in an empty room

with infomercial trying to sell you gawd knows what

and later, you'll have inexplicable cravings for

Congolium floors or timeshares

but the problem with timers is that

like with alarms clocks

you'll second guess when they'll go off

dozing cozily in the middle of the rerun

missing the climax, only to wake to a disjointed ending

and the writer in you will attempt to resolve the storyline

and there you are, at three am with owl's eyes

staring at the ceiling but it's all too banal to record.

PADI: write a sevenling poem. Never heard of a sevenling poem? Well, it’s a 7-line poem (chosen because today is the 7th day of the challenge) that features two tercets and a one-liner in the final (third) stanza. The first two stanzas should have an element of three in them that can either play off each directly, work as juxtaposition, or have no connection whatsoever. The final line should work as either a punchline, weird twist, or punctuation mark.

NaPoWriMo: poem that tells a lie. I think you could have a poem that’s all lies (that could be very funny — full of things like “the sun is the size of a nickel”) or a poem that steadily builds to telling one big whopper. I can imagine these being very poignant, or very much like goofy shaggy-dog stories. I suppose it all comes down to what you want to lie about!


Molly Fisk: April 7 prompt: The secret to staying asleep all night.


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write an ode to one regret that you have. (For more information on the ode, visit http://bit.ly/gKG9Aa)


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APRIL FOOL POEM

This is just to say

that the text message 

you sent April first

arrived a week late

and all out of breath

having traversed 

the outer reaches 

of Alpha Centauri

in record time but 

I am sad to say that

it did not arrive

in time for last 

week's dinner invite.



This was not written from a prompt but one could use this one:
PADI: write a new arrival poem. The new arrival could be a baby or a person. The new arrival might be a car or other piece of technology. Heck, the new arrival might be an idea or poem. (Btw, if you’re a new arrival to the site and this challenge, take a peak below about commenting.)

POST POEM

PADI: Prite a post poem. Post could be short for post office–or traditional mail. Post could be a wood or metal post. Or post could mean relate to words like postpone, post-punk, or whatever.

NaPoWriMo: write a sea shanty (or shantey, or chanty, or chantey — there’s a good deal of disagreement regarding the spelling!). Anyway, these are poems in the forms of songs, strongly rhymed and rhythmic, that sailors might sing while hauling on ropes and performing other sea-going labors. Probably the two most famous sea shanties are What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor? and Blow the Man Down. And what should your poem be about? Well, I suppose it could be about anything, although some nautical phrases tossed into the chorus would be good for keeping the sea in your shanty. Haul away, boys, haul away!


Molly Fisk: April 6 prompt: I never want to be too comfortable.



30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem from Mars. Describe ordinary things in unfamiliar ways, as through the eyes of someone from another planet unfamiliar with our culture/objects/emotions.


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PLUS POEM

Cinquains
there are some things
I'm not fond of like writing
tight little poems in for
mation

syllables 2-4-6-8-2
stresses 1-2-3-4-1

PADI: write a plus poem. Plus can mean a lot of things, and even the act of addition could equate to subtraction.

NaPoWriMo: write a cinquain on this, the fifth day of NaPoWriMo. A cinquain is a poem that employs stanzas with five lines. Each line has a certain number of accented or stressed syllables, and a certain number of overall syllables per line. In the “American” cinquain, a form invented by a woman with the highly unfortunate name of Adelaide Crapsey, the number of stresses per line is 1-2-3-4-1, and the number of syllables is 2-4-6-8-2. So the first line would have two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed. The second line would have four syllables, two of which are stressed, and so on. This kind of accent/syllabic verse can be a bit frustrating at first, but it’s useful for learning to sharpen up your language!


Molly Fisk: April 5 prompt: These are the things that no one ever told me...


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Make something. Anything! Write a poem about your spontaneous making experience.



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HOLD THAT POEM

PADI: take the phrase “Hold That (Blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and write the poem. Possible titles include “Hold That Thought,” “Hold That Space,” “Hold That Poem,” or whatever else holds your attention.

NaPoWriMo: write a poem with a title drawn from one of these spaceship names. Feel free to pick a genuine Banks, like the ones listed above, or to take one from the twitter. And if you think of your own Banks-like spaceship name title, feel free to use that! The poet Barbara Guest wrote an essay warning poets about starting from the title, but while I’ve found that a wonderful poem usually finds its right title, I’ve also found that the right title can easily lead to a wonderful poem!


Molly Fisk: April 4 prompt: "There is a knack to flying. You must throw yourself at the ground and miss." -- e.e. cummings


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Look to Craigslist, newspapers, Twitter, anywhere for unintentional poetry. Using the original text, punctuate and use line breaks to turn it into a poem.

TENTATIVE POEM

PADI: write a tentative poem. The poem could be about a tentative date, a tentative person, a tentative situation. The narrator could be tentative. The subject could be tentative.

NaPoWriMo: writing in ottava rima — an Italian form that, in English, usually takes the form of an eight-line stanza of iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c. The most famous poem in English that uses the ottava rima form is probably Byron’s Don Juan. If you haven’t read it, it’s wickedly funny! It’s really amazing how contemporary Byron’s language is — it’s like he’s your mean-girl friend just gossiping at you in verse. But unlike Byron, you don’t have to write an entire epic in ottava rima! Just eight lines will do for now. Happy writing! (I think this was the Day 8 poem... sigh)

Here's an orphan prompt instead: Seven Things I Will Not Think About in the Last Seconds of My Life.


Molly Fisk: April 3 prompt: That's not really happening is it?


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem to someone and share it with them.


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DARK POEM

PADI:Two-for-Tuesday prompt. For those new to the challenge, you have the option of writing to the first prompt or the second prompt–or even both if you feel so inclined. Here they are:
Write a bright poem.
Write a dark poem.

NaPoWriMo: write a valediction. This is a poem of farewell. Perhaps the most famous one is John Donne’s A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, which turns the act of saying good-bye into a very tender love poem. But your poem could say “good-bye” (and maybe good riddance!) to anything or anyone. A good-bye to winter might be in order, for example. Or good-bye to the week-old easter eggs in your refrigerator. Light or serious, long or short, it’s up to you!


Molly Fisk: April 2 prompt: I still plan to write you a letter on growing up far from the desert.


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem on paper quickly without lifting your pen from the page. Post image if possible. No edits.



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