This will be our last daily prompt for a while, Poetry People. I decided to end on a fun one, writing a silly limerick about a smack-talking Cyclops and a cheating golem made from bread running a race.
This year's final NaPoWriMo post invites participants to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend.
Hence, the Cyclops and the bread golem.
I believe this is the first time anyone has written specifically about a bread golem. In fairness, the infamous gingerbread man is also a golem made from foodstuffs.
I was up until close to three in the morning preparing my submission email for Dragon Soul Press. It's flown to its destination and was swiftly acknowledged.
This is the link you require if you're interested in submitting to their forthcoming horror drabble anthology (submission deadline 31 May).
Don't direct further questions to me 'cause I can't answer 'em! I'm just the messenger.
I hope one day soon I come to a place of peace with this damn CPAP machine. I fare better when I keep it on, but I don't like having things on my face. I usually take the mask off while I'm asleep.
I really do wish society, including the medical community, would stop shaming people for not being perfect specimens of exceptional health. I feel like a failure for having diabetes. I feel like a failure for needing a CPAP machine. I felt like a failure when I had to have an emergency C-section. I feel like a failure anytime one of my old fillings needs replacing. Telling people they're failures if they have health issues doesn't lead to improved outcomes, and this ineffective method of "encouragement" needs to stop.
Good afternoon, Poetry People! I must admit that my first thought on seeing today's NaPoWriMo prompt was, "Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with that?"
I have a quibble with the reference to these as being "Swiftean words." She did not invent these words any more than I invented the words ornery, sarcasm, or snark. She just used them.
I'm pretty sure Lemmy invented the word Orgasmatron. Lord Iffy Boatrace's butler Butler invented a rather horrifying sex machine called the Pelvotron in Bruce Dickinson's naughty and nutty novel The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace. So, Orgasmatron may well be a proper Kilmisterian word, while Pelvotron is a Dickinsonian (as opposed to Dickensian) term. Bruce Dickinson, or at least his band, Iron Maiden, will figure into this post again at a later point.
Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asks poets to pen a proper Until Blank poem.
One of my favorite songs is Albatross by Judy Collins. However, I also recalled The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a lyrical ballad written in 1797 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and published in 1798 in a collection of lyrical ballads by Coleridge and William Wordsworth. 186 years later, Iron Maiden recorded a 13-minute tribute to the ballad for their 1984 album Powerslave, and lo, a nineteen-year-old me was grateful yet again for Steve Harris and his love of history and literature.
I used the word elegy in today's poem, which touches on the topics of my pig-headed persistence until the day I go tits up, whether anyone will be inspired to write an elegy for such an ornery cuss, and the fact that I would prefer to listen to the songs of Judy Collins or Iron Maiden over Taylor Swift. This actually isn't done in the manner of a dig at Taylor Swift, it's simply factual information about me.
I honestly don't care much about Taylor Swift one way or the other. I find it ridiculous that some man-children who either frequent incel forums or use religion as a cudgel to keep women in their place have their tighty whiteys in a bunch about the fact that a thirty-four-year-old woman is unmarried and childless. I find Ms. Swift's reported carbon footprint rather outlandish, but I don't have any vehement dislike for her.
I'm no Swiftie, but let's give Taylor a fair shake. The Lakes is a pleasant enough melody with rather evocative lyrics.
Albatross was first released on Judy Collins' 1967 album Wildflowers. I've always felt like she could have written this song about me. I had overly romantic ideals for much of my life. I learned the harsh lesson that fairy tales aren't real. No prince is coming to your rescue. You have to save yourself.
The lyrics also speak to my struggles with sometimes debilitating depression and extreme loneliness. I've learned over time that being an outlier like I am means that I will never fit in with other people. It's taken most of my life for me to be sort of okay with that.
This is an orchestral rendition of Iron Maiden's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner with some illustrative AI images. Some of these are pretty cool, but the pirate in a dress at 4:01 and 5:00 is just funny. However, if a pirate wants to wear a dress, why shouldn't he?
I hope you enjoyed this extended penultimate post of prompts and songs. I'll be back tomorrow for the grand finale!
I'd rather play chess with an octopus and a bunch of weird mutant aquatic squirrels underwater than sail on a cursed ship with a dead albatross around my neck.
I've got clever designs on using my writing Tumblr as a vehicle for a weekly recap as well as for other promotional posts and interesting stuff. Check it out if you like!
Good morning, Poetry People! Just three more days and we'll be wrapping our prompt session for the year. I'll start publishing poems to promote Soul Ink 2 when I receive word which if any of my poems have been selected to appear.
I haven't been doing a very good job of promoting my books lately. However, I have been working on bringing my anxiety under control so I don't wake up every morning feeling like I'm about to pitch a panic attack. Marketing and networking are very stressful for me and sometimes I have to take a step back. That being said, let's get to it!
Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asks participants to pen a remix poem. I always save this prompt until the end of the challenge.
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt invites poets to create an American sonnet. The American sonnet has fewer rules than a traditional sonnet. NaPoWriMo suggested the following site for inspiration on writing your own American sonnet.
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt asked poets to write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance.
Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds.
I needed a persona promptly, so I chose a chunk of charcoal and penned a volcanic (or at least fiery) verse.
There will be no sitting back basking in the glow of my cleverness, however. I need to edit the story I'm submitting to Dragon Soul Press for their fairy anthology. I need to begin composing my query letter and selecting which poems I'll submit to the Soul Ink 2 anthology. I am also planning on releasing a drabble memoir for your 60th birthday next year, so I want to lay the groundwork for that.
It can't be my 60th birthday coming up. Therefore, it has to be yours.
Today's April PAD Challenge prompt asks participants to pick up their pens and pen a homonym poem. The host also provides examples of both homographs and homophones.
I steamily stewed while fishing through queries to stew up a questionable kettle of steaming homographic and homophonic phish...er...fish.
Then I noticed the immersive questionnaire at the end of the NaPoWriMo post.
Back to work with me!
I may turn these questions into a series of essays or just drabbles. I may do the same with the Proust questionnaire. Maybe I'll get a jump on next year's A to Z Blogging Challenge.
I'll be finishing the April Camp NaNoWriMo today. There's another Camp NaNoWriMo in July, and because I'm a masochist who hates myself, I'll join in.
Before wrapping this session up, I wanted to take a minute to tell you about AutoCrit. I rely on this program for self-editing, but they also provide numerous writing workshops every month, and many of these are free for members.
I always love these deep house mixes. I'd rather they featured images of the ocean or boats or something rather than an endless flow of scantily clad young women. At the very least they could throw in a little phantom man-ass, though admissibly, the men they chose would all be too young for me. I prefer my phantom man-ass well seasoned and tough enough to handle a salty old kitchen witch like Yours Truly.
I've yet to find the right man for the job and am pretty well convinced he doesn't exist outside of my imagination. Plus, in fairness, this kitchen witch is an untrusting old bitch. How's that for an unabashedly honest revelation?
Hello Poetry People! I fell down a Norse and Slavic mythology rabbit hole yesterday. We'll get to that as we go along.
First, I used this Maximum prompt as the inspiration for taking my poetry ambitions to the Maximum and writing a sweet suite of four poems instead of just one poem for each day.
The final Twofer Tuesday prompt for this challenge asks for a Heart of the Blank and/or a Blank of the Heart poem. I went with Heart of the Rage and Rage of the Heart.
The NaPoWriMo prompt for the 23rd suggests participants create a superhero poem. Well, nuts to that! Go big or go home, I say. I went full-on Goddess.
I probably did a search for an angry goddess and was given Skaði, a lesser-known Norse goddess who just can't catch a break and is pissed off about it. Don't tell her I said so, but it's probably best to choose your husband based on criteria other than having good-looking feet. Skaði thought she was getting Balder, but she ended up with the sea god Njörðr, and they were a terrible match. She didn't like the sea and he didn't like the mountains.
I brought in this plovers and sandpipers prompt to create a Rage of the Heart Tanka to describe Skaði's dismay at being stuck on the beach in her husband's domain.
Making my rounds through the goddesses, I learned about the Western Slavic goddess Marzanna, who is drowned in effigy every year on the first day of Spring. I wrote a Heart of the Rage Tanka with this ceremony in mind.
The NaPoWriMo poem asks poets to begin with a line from a well-known poem and then go their own way. I started with "shall I compare thee to..." and went straight off the rails!
