NaPoMo, Day 19: triumph

triumph

is heavy:

in the crown of old wars

a broken king

calls for more wine

Colbert & Caroline Kennedy Poetry Battle

Closed book. From the heart. Stephen Colbert and Caroline Kennedy face off in a night of epic recitations. (Click to watch the clip on Colbert Nation.)

NaPoMo, Day 18: maybe it’s

Today’s BLUE-out poem for National Poetry Month:

maybe it’s

lack of world

lack of time

lack of motivation

lackadaisical rats

running

on a wheel of days

But

it’s no

excuse

NaPoMo, Day 17: spaces, faces, conversations

Today another blackout poem, but first an announcement: the ART PAGE of my website is now up! It’s still under construction (I plan to keep adding to it/changing it over time) but I’m really pleased with how it turned out and excited to have a splash of color on my pages 🙂

Here is the text of the poem above:

spaces, faces, conversations

and out of the dirty white fog

was a world:

dark spruce,

rainstorms, and

solitude

rather than loneliness.

I added a few commas and used paint pens instead of sharpie– check out that ritzy gold! And what kind of pink is that– flamingo/strawberry milk? My my my, I think I’ve unwittingly created the flag for a Racecar Barbie.

Another poem tomorrow.

NaPoMo, Day 16: Proof!

Today’s blackout poem, in observance of National Poetry Month, reads thus:

proof! he proclaims.

more important is

the space

opened up

by dream:

the jumpman

at the edge of order

imagining his hour

NaPoMo, Day 15: love is such wilderness

It’s the start of Blackout Week here at The Read Room! To celebrate National Poetry Month, this week I am composing one blackout poem a day.

A blackout poem, for those unfamiliar with them, is a poem written via erasure or “blacking out” text on a given page. You start with an article, a column, or any page of text (get creative– you could photocopy something from a novel, a dictionary, an almanac, etc.). Underline or circle words you like. Then, using those words you marked, make a coherent arrangement: lines, sentences, or even a single phrase. Color over the rest, and there you have it– a blackout poem!

I hadn’t used my pastels in forever, so I when I had the idea to use those instead of sharpie I had to try it 🙂

The poem reads thus:

love is such Wilderness

the sidewalk cracks.

when most else has wilted

it will be

uprooting rivers.

Another poem tomorrow. Oh, and pretty soon I’m going to have to get my writing prompts for Interactive Poetry Week (next week) posted– so stay tuned!

NaPoMo, Day 11: Delight in Disorder

Today’s artistically-adapted poem is “Delight in Disorder” by Robert Herrick. I’d intended the background as a sort of messy collage when I started– to go with the theme of the poem– but then it became a flag, and ultimately ended up looking like a landscape. How did that happen?

I still had fun making it, and I hope that whoever finds it will appreciate deviance from theme as a form of “Disorder” 😉 More poems to come!

xo Julie