POETRY FOR 30 DAYS IN APRIL DAY 5

Project Details

Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?

Day 5 Prompt

This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. If I used Roethke’s poem as my model, for example, the first line would start with “I,” the second line with “W,” and the third line with “A.” And I would try to make all my lines neither super-short nor overlong, but have about ten syllables. I would also have my poem take the form of four, seven-line stanzas. I have found this prompt particularly inspiring when I use a base poem that mixes long and short lines, or stanzas of different lengths. Any poem will do as a jumping-off point, but if you’re having trouble finding one, perhaps you might consider Mary Szybist’s “We Think We Do Not Have Medieval Eyes” or for something shorter, Natalie Shapero’s “Pennsylvania.”

The Poem I used was found in Poetry Magazine Feb 2021 issue. It was by Stella Wong "The Hindenburg Mystery". I randomly chose one of the magazines I hadn't read yet them thumbed through the magazine three times and stopped on this poem. I left it up to the universe and the universe always provides what we need when we need it.

Day 5 Poem

The Father I Mean To Be

My example provided me with a photo negative

Because I used to think he didn’t know better

And does this excuse his example

Benefactor of his own abuses

Any time I want to know what not to do

Accessing the memories

Instant recollection provides the answer

Beatings and badgering for bad behavior

Are not what I want to pass on

Accepting my faults and my lack of knowledge

Instituting controls on my anger

Never punish while upset

My offspring will have their own guideposts

Positive exposures

Will lead them to raise their own

Healthier than I have raised them

Beautiful memories is what I wish upon them

From this battered soul

Heaven truly is

A smile on their lips that lasts past my lifetime

Father, why have I had to remove you

Parenting is not a contact sport

Wishing for the perfect family

Always leaves me shivering on the floor

And the day I stopped trying to

Appease you, appeal to you

& started this journey alone, with my family

That is when I broke the cycle

Truly began loving my family

In ways that maybe you wished you could

It would have been great if you were a strong man to have shown the way

Reaching Out

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.