Poetry Prompt April 30, 2023

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espresso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

For 2023 I am not going to be just writing poems in April, I will be writing poems all year round. Also, since I will be writing all year round, I am using a different source for my prompts. There is a blog called Think Written and you can find it here. I will also be performing these works at Katora Coffee House here in Fredericksburg Virginia on their Friday Night Snaps Open Mic Poetry reading. Some of the podcast episodes you will hear will be a live recording of me reading the poem to a live audience, other times I will be reading it in the comfort of my home studio. I do plan on posting my work to the NaPoWriMo site and interacting with the poets there and see if they want to read their work on this podcast.

I’d like to challenge you to write a palinode – a poem in which you retract a view or sentiment expressed in an earlier poem. For example, you might pick a poem you drafted earlier in the month and write a poem that contradicts or troubles it. This could be an interesting way to start working on a series of related poems. Alternatively, you could play around with the idea of a palinode by writing a poem in which the speaker says something like “I take it back” or otherwise abandons a prior position within the single poem. 

At One Time 

30 April 2023 

You used to be important to me 

I even let you seep into my world 

Mine 

The world of words 

That I crafted for others 

And let you reside for one or two works 

I looked to you to provide guidance and called you Papa 

I wanted to be the ideal son 

I don’t know when I felt that I should 

And most normal families 

According to your third trophy wife 

Are set up that way 

And she said that because 

I told you not to come unannounced 

I gave you restrictions 

To protect my mental health 

To protect the family I cocreated 

I told you both not to send anything without checking 

And you could not abide 

You could not follow directions 

You could not honor my life 

So you were discarded 

I won’t speak your name in my house 

I won’t call you Papa 

Or father or friend or mentor 

Especially after the one call you did receive 

At a time when I knew you wouldn’t be home 

And I left the last message 

You would ever receive from me 

You were renamed sperm donor 

Which is what you were 

But you were so much more 

You were my tormentor 

You instilled the hatred of my body 

My mind 

My choices 

You instilled that I shouldn’t ever be satisfied with myself 

Which is not the same as never being satisfied with the status quo 

I have to lie to my children 

And beg their forgiveness later in life 

When they find out you didn’t die 

When I vaguely mentioned that you did 

No details 

Just death 

Because you are dead to me 

But you still live in me 

And the hatred I have felt of myself 

Reminds me of your hold 

Your influence 

But the victory comes 

When the day you will actually die 

And I won’t fear you showing up at my door 

Ad having to explain to my children who the person 

I won’t let in the house  

Standing on the porch 

Waiting to infect 

The poison 

The poison you injected into me 

They may ask who that person is 

And again I will lie to them 

It's just easier this way 

Then describing your sickness 

So I do thank you for one thing 

And that is being the photo negative 

I don’t ever want to be 

Other than that 

I’ll see you in hell 

And that is what you mean to me 

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