Tag Archives: National Poetry Writing Month

A prompt, followed slant

Thanks once again to Lisa Hase-Jackson for the prompt that led to today’s poem. I didn’t exactly follow the directions, but poetry likes to break the rules.

Here is the thing: feathers
make me sneeze, bless my soul,
and tunes without words
make no sense at all

to me, unless heard
a thousand times, so they storm
my senses like flocking birds
or a swarm

of locusts upon the land.
Yet, when I feel utterly at sea
like that, in my extremity
I am so much more than ever me.

https://zingarapoet.net/2025/04/21/a-focused-free-writing-poetry-prompt/

…and here are the last of the tulips, going out with a bang.

Random word poem

Thanks to Lisa Hase-Jackson’s prompt (and a little free time) I have a poem to post today!

Skirting the subject

Salad is the currency of assumption, an affair
we don’t bother to unpack. Disaster is a pie

we warm in the microwave, topped with trouble
and crushed dreams. Ask Sir Isaac to explain

the physics of it all, or the professor who groped
you in the rear of the science lab during a quiz.

https://zingarapoet.net/2025/04/19/random-word-prompt/

And in honor of Earth Day, here are some of my favorite daffodils from the yard. (The name escapes me at the moment.)

Dandelion

Dandelion don’t care where she grow

edge of the road, edge of the rose bed
deep in the middle of a thick green lawn

with sprinkler system (she like that)
sidewalk crack or fancy bed

she sink her toes, stretch her arms
wide, lift her burning face

to the sky, tiny sun
here on the ground

Moon poetry art

One of the most wonderful and humbling things that can happen for me as an artist is for my work to inspire someone else’s art.

My friend Liz is a fabulously talented fiber artist. Today she surprised me with a gift of her latest design:

She even wrote a poem of her own for the back:

Things like this remind me that life is good. Friends are good. Art is good. Poetry is good.

NaPoMo 2022, Day 19

I’ve not been writing as much as I’d hoped, but I have been reading and listening to poetry, and writing when I can. This is a derangement of a poem by Wordsworth, “On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway.”

Against the wrong protest, constantly voice
your strong torrents: winding, speaking, passing
dead hearts, if they be human. And of nature, romance
the beautiful peace and plead for rapture’s glance,
the traveler given pause at the forest’s head.
Seen in bright threat, baffled and thrown, random
fields admit the pattern, are lured by false utility
and scorn. Who bemoans the change, ruthless
and musty, endured by this blighted parish?
Blow hope to flowers, early and pure, kept busy
in the world of youth, sown in retirement.
Schemes assault the rash, secure in the ground
of English, naked then, railed away:
it is merely the wind, kindled on the project.

‘April Queen’ daffodil, a gift from my daughter

NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 30

Today is the last day of National Poetry Writing Month, but the writing will go on! My final poem for the month was inspired by the triolet form (though it’s not a triolet) and Maya Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning,” which was in the prompt from Adele Kenny’s poetry blog.

Praying for a dream

lift up your faces
you have a piercing need
which will not be moved
despite its wrenching pain

lift up your faces
but seek no haven
a bordered country
armed for slaughter

lift up your faces
for a new beginning
clad in peace
you have a piercing need

 

 

 

These irises were a gift from a neighbor. Thanks for reading!

 

NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 29

I’ve been writing but haven’t had time to post. The poem for today’s prompt from Adele Kenny’s poetry blog is “The Hedgehog” by Paul Muldoon. I love his line breaks and how the last stanza takes the reader somewhere much more serious than the rest of the poem portends.

Reasons to Write Poetry, No. 427

Sometimes you start writing
a poem as it comes to you
line by line, and it turns
suddenly in a direction
you didn’t expect.

 

 

Here is a gorgeous iris to thank you for reading.

 

 

NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 20

A line from Mary Oliver’s “Why I Wake Early” caught my ear, thanks to the prompt at Adele Kenny’s poetry blog: wake.

Not a morning person

(after M. Oliver)

even the miserable and the crotchety
must wake, however early or late,
to the sun’s relentless cheeriness
and radioactive optimism

 

 

Some tulips and grape hyacinths would like to thank you for reading.

 

 

NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 6

The last couple days’ drafts have been, well, a bit too drafty to post.
But here is a derangement of Elizabeth Bishop’s “I Am in Need of Music,” inspired by a prompt at Adele Kenny’s poetry blog: Music.

Harmonic intervention

(after E. Bishop)

Sleep; the moon floats
forever still in the sea,
fading, sinking; deep
through the heart
of cool, quiet rest
breathes a spell
made of melody.

Limbs flush, glow
and quiver in dreams
of water, falling
dead-tired to rest
in the sway of some old
song, low and liquid.

Oh, for the healing!
Clear lips, trembling
melody, bitter fingers
feel the frets
of tainted music:

I am in need.


NaPoWriMo 2021, Day 3

This is a very loose derangement of Yeats’ “When You Are Old,” inspired by a prompt at Adele Kenny’s poetry blog: Aging.

Time and sky
(after W.B. Yeats)

Stars cloud his face, hidden overhead
amid mountains that glow with the bend
and change of sorrow. The soul seeks
false love, true beauty, and grace
of moments deep in shadow. Soft eyes
dream of looks read slowly and taken
by fire, nodding and grey with sleep,
at once old and full.