Today's prompt was for a science poem. I love science--I love that it makes my life better in often unthought of ways. Had I been born a hundred years ago, it's likely I wouldn't have made it out of infancy. I had asthma as a child, and a severe reaction to the smallpox vaccine, which … Continue reading Day 17
Day 16
Today is a death poem, which I suppose is appropriate given that tax day was yesterday, though at my current income level, tax day is always the day I get my W-2 form, so I can spend my refund as soon as possible. Maybe one day I'll need an accountant--it would be nice to make … Continue reading Day 16
Day 15
Because it's tax day, the assignment is to write a deadline poem. So I drew a little inspiration from E. E. Cummings's "next to of course god america i" and strung together some incomplete phrases which played on both the standard definition of deadline and some alternative readings of the word and its roots. This … Continue reading Day 15
Day 14
I only now got the chance to sit down and really think about today's prompt--something to do with an island, as I recall. I've marked somewhere north of 30 papers today, and still have more to do, but I had to have a break for a bit. So here's the story. Fort Lauderdale, and most … Continue reading Day 14
Day 13
Today is a love poem (or an anti-love poem, whatever the hell that is), which is harder than it might seem at first glance, at least if you're going to be original in any way. Here's my entry. If the title is confusing, say it aloud a few times. Mime Is Tress Yser Your eyes … Continue reading Day 13
Day 12
My father was a nomad, and a son of a nomad. He lived in every small town and on many of the farms outside San Antonio as a kid. His father was a fiddler and journeyman carpenter, and often housed his family in the old houses on many family farms while he remodeled them. Once … Continue reading Day 12
Day 11
I stretched the prompt a little today--instead of using the phrase "the last" in my title, I just used the word last. I've never written a "13 Ways" poem before, and I used some of my tweets from last year as sections. I'm pretty sure I'll be changing the first section at some point. 13 … Continue reading Day 11
Day 10
Write a horror poem. Except I don't really do horror. Never liked horror movies--the closest I've ever come to liking one was "Shaun of the Dead." Even monster movies didn't do anything for me as a kid, and today's torture porn? Ugh. No thanks. But it turns out I did have something to pull from … Continue reading Day 10
Day 9
Today is a self-portrait, and so I decided to go back to some ground I covered 8 or 9 years ago when I discovered that my father had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease since, like my father, like all of us really, who I am is tied up with the workings of my brain. … Continue reading Day 9
Day 8
Thursdays are going to be brutal for me in getting this done this month, mostly because I have such a long workday, and fitting a poem into an already taxing schedule is rough. Today's challenge was to write a poem about a tool, and while I admit I was considering making a joke of it, … Continue reading Day 8