National Poetry Writing Month Day 5

What is National Poetry Writing Month?

Welcome, art enthusiasts and wordsmiths alike, to another episode of Create Art Podcast! We are diving headfirst into the enchanting world of poetry as we celebrate National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). This annual event, which takes place every April, encourages poets and aspiring writers around the globe to embrace their creativity and commit to writing a poem each day for the entire month.

The Beauty of National Poetry Writing Month:
NaPoWriMo, similar to its prose-centric counterpart National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), is a celebration of the written word and the boundless creativity that can flow when one dedicates themselves to a daily practice. Poets of all levels of expertise are invited to take part, from seasoned wordsmiths to those just dipping their toes into the vast ocean of verse.

Create Art Podcast has always been a haven for artists to share their creative processes, and NaPoWriMo offers a unique opportunity for poets to reflect on their craft. With a daily commitment to producing poetry, participants discover new facets of their writing style, experiment with various forms, and explore uncharted emotional territories.

Prompt for today

Today we’d like you to start by taking a look at Alicia Ostriker’s poem, “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog.” Now try your hand at writing your own poem about how a pair or trio very different things would perceive of a blessing or, alternatively, how these very different things would think of something else (luck, grief, happiness, etc).

Poem for Today

The Father the Kids and the unholy spirit 

5 April 24 

I lied many times to protect you 

And I told you to never lie to me 

I said your grandparents were dead 

So that’s only a half lie 

I told you some of the horrors that befell me at their hands 

And I told you I was trying to be better than them 

Because they didn’t know what they were doing 

That was a lie 

Through living I discovered many of the things they told me were lies 

And so you too will discover that there is no tooth fairy 

There is no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus 

There are evil people in the world that want to destroy you 

And some of them you are related to 

And that is what I have to protect you from 

So, they are dead to me 

And it’s not too much of a lie 

And I want you to not live in lies 

Because when we live in lies 

We are living in fear 

And there is enough of that to go around 

I don’t want you to fear the dark 

Or the monsters that lurk in your head 

Or the monsters that lurk in mine 

I’ve killed them many times 

He told us from a young age that his parents had died 

We felt sorry for him and compassion 

He told us eventually what had happened 

When we turned 18 

When he thought we could handle the truth 

But we missed out on having a grandfather 

When all the other kids had nice normal families 

We wonder what else he has lied about 

Is he really our father 

Is he really kind and protective 

Can we ever trust anything he says 

This family lives in the shadows 

And we want to see the light 

Is the anger we feel at being lied to 

The anger he struggles with 

Is that what he has passed onto us 

Or is it just another lie 

He says he lied to protect us 

Is that another lie 

Was he just a spoiled brat mama’s boy 

Who had never seen the light 

You killed me off prematurely 

Didn’t send pictures of my grandkids 

What did I do to you to deserve this 

I gave you a happy home 

I gave you the fear of my god 

I gave everything I had to prepare you for this world 

And you dashed it aside 

I can’t forgive you ever for what you have done 

And now that I have really died 

You won’t be receiving the pictures that you begged from me 

You will never understand why 

I did what I did because it was what I knew to be good 

And I lied about your mother many times 

But she was a psycho and a bad lay 

And you were a mistake and costly 

And now you are killing off the family line 

I told my third wife that you took after your psycho mother 

And thats why we don’t talk 

I told her you were possessed from long ago 

And were a lost cause 

I eventually gave up on ever hearing from you again 

My only biological son 

And I never reached out 

I attended my church and got solace from them 

In hopes that one day you would return like the prodigal parable 

And make me proud for the first time 

But you never did and here I am six feet under the ground 

Are you happy yet 

Have you been vindicated 

As I lay here and rot 

Are you happy yet 

Spreading lies that help you believe your narrative 

So what if I hit on your bride 

So what if I picked you last 

So what if I took from you the most precious thing in the world, your innocence 

You should have seen what I went through 

What I protected you from 

Lies are the way we deal with the world 

And lies will come back to you 

And haunt you at night 

Like I will do 

And lies are all we have left 

The lies we tell ourselves 

The lies we tell our children 

You have been recruited into this world of lies 

So don’t think you are above it 

Don’t think you are immune 

Don’t think you are unsullied 

Because I took what is most precious from you 

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