Challenge: Haiku

Today's prompt at Poetic Asides was haiku, a form I've never been fond of. I never quite knew why I wasn't fond of it--it was more a visceral thing for me--but Jim Murdoch has outlined some pretty good reasons for disliking it, at least as it's generally understood. I'm going to take a longer look at what he's talking about, though, because there's some promise in futching with the form, I think.

But for this exercise, I stuck with the tradition, even if it's a messed up one, and the subject matter is the thing that's overwhelming me at the moment--the last week and a half of the Spring semester here at Our Fair University.

Haikus for the last week of classes

The end of Spring term:
my ambient noise setting
is Buddhist morning.

I'd rather sweep, mop,
pull weeds, sift the litter box,
than grade these essays.

It's raining today,
though not the rainy season.
No escape for me.

Coffee wakes me up
but the dose necessary
makes my comments poor.

Squirrel in the palm
looks in my window, chitters,
mocks. Hawk swooping by.

Alone in the class,
I count the minutes, seconds,
'til the bus is due.

My first flarf?

This is written as part of the Poetic Asides National Poetry Month writing challenge. I wasn't all that into the prompt, and this came out, perhaps a bit snarkier than I intended, but there it is.


All I want is

peace love and understanding
and this lamp,
the breeze off the ocean,
noise putty,
a loaf of bread, a jug of wine,
more hair (except on my back),
sharks with fricking laserbeams attached to their heads,
a pair of really comfortable shoes,
Boo-Berry,
an iPhone rolling on twenty-twos,
the question for which 42 is the answer,
less foot pain,
the movie rights,
forgiven student loans,
more visitors to my blog,
a cup of coffee that tastes as good as it smells,
Velveeta.


If flarf is intentionally bad poetry, then I think this qualifies, though it certainly wouldn't be my first flarf piece. That would probably be my "Sonnet to Sausage," mercifully unpublished all these years.

National Poetry Month

So it's April again, time for a host of news articles which once again reference the opening lines of "The Waste Land." I've been in a dry spell as far as writing goes lately--too many other things crowding out my writing time, though the responsibility is mine. So I'm using this month to generate a lot of new stuff, as are a lot of other people, by taking part in NaPoWriMo, or Poem-a-day activities. Poetic Asides, which is the poetry blog of the company which publishes Writer's Digest, is offering a prompt a day, along with a contest. I plan to take part in that one, and perhaps post some of the work I do here as well, though I make no promises.

Some advice

Robert Lee Brewer asked around on Facebook for some advice on writing a bio for a poetry submission. I responded, and he included my comments here if you're interested. My standard opening joke is included in there.

Challenge Poem

So when I mentioned the April Poetry Challenge, I said I might post some of what comes out of that. Why not?

Here's the second poem I wrote for the challenge--not the second challenge, mind you, but the second one I wrote. I'm not real sure how I feel about it yet, but here it is. I'm certainly open to comments on it.

Headlines

I was born two days after Nixon won
the first time. Inauspicious beginnings
in a year of strife. Bobby Kennedy.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The Tet Offensive.
I am the same age as The ODB
and Lisa Marie Presley, as Ziggy Marley
and Vanilla Ice, and no wonder
we’re all fucked up because we
all came forth in a year of strife
and we’ve never gotten over it.
I turned 32 on Election Day, 2000
the day Fox News declared George Dubya
the 43rd President of the US.
I’ll be working that one out of my system
for decades—to be forever linked
with Nixon is bad enough, but to carry
the weight of the two worst presidents
ever is a bit much to ask of anyone.
But I refuse to stay down. In ‘68
I also got Tommie Smith and John Carlos
in Mexico City, The White Album,
Cash at Folsom Prison and Lady Soul,
Of Being Numerous and North Central,
2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes
and “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”.
It’s not enough, but it is something,
a firebreak, a seawall that deadens
the hurricane’s storm surge, a shot
of whiskey to numb an abscessed tooth.

Here's his latest challenge. It just so happens I'm working on one about seeing la grande Jatte, so if it comes out, I might post that as well.

April Writing Challenge

Robert Lee Brewer is a guy I know primarily through Florida political writing. We're both bloggers on that subject as well, he at Pushing Rope and me at Incertus. But he's also the writer of Poetic Asides, which I've just added to the blogroll (under Robert's name), and he's doing a poem-a-day sort of thing there for National Poetry Month. I think I'm going to give it a try, as the spirit hits me at least. Maybe I'll post some of what comes out of it here. It would certainly give me greater impetus to blog.