Five Cinquains

I wasn’t going to join in on Poetry Friday today, then went to Linda’s roundup, found her post on Adelaide Crapsey and the cinquain form, and decided to put something up after all.

The cinquain is one of the short forms I’ve written in when composing poems in response to the daily photography prompts I’ve been following. Here are five (in honor of the cinquain’s five lines) that I’ve written in the past few months. They’ll take you back to spring and onward. (Title is the photo prompt word or phrase.)

Fresh

Policeman’s helmet (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

just washed
smell of laundry
policeman’s helmet grows
riotously beside the stream
fresh pink

Group

McBurney Lane art piece (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

Teamwork
Community
Get involved, Lend a hand
Support, Help out, Volunteer, Care
Give back.

A helping hand

My viewing deck on eclipse morning (Photo © 2017 by V.Nesdoly)

Eclipse—
protect my eyes:
box, tin foil, white paper
pinhole camera in my hand.
Viewed safe.

Fencing

Bug on a fence (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

After
stone-bottom burrow
this sleek white thoroughfare
is a bug’s sci-fi fantasy
new world!

Silver

Street vendor sugar bowl (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

Silver
imperfections
can’t hide your sweet intent
like grey hair, wrinkled face of our
Granny

All the above © 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
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This post is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by Linda at Teacher Dance.

 

 

Life between the rows

Pink hyacinth–appreciated indoors (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

I look down at my garden
at tight pink hyacinths ready to pop
green spears of tulip
clumped in the randomness
of fall planting
but nothing stirs in me
except guilt.

I should be out there
softening the soil
letting in the air,
stirring it to a rich black backdrop
that will show off the colour to come.

But my healing hip
holds me in its prison
of ache and slow motion.
My body begs to sit and relax
stretch out, watch TV

like the May long ago
when newly received
perennial roots
grew dry and lifeless
as my body insisted
on time to grow strong again.

© 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

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Prompt – Inspiration

This is another poem I wrote in the spring of 2014 when recovering from my broken hip. The “between the lines” idea came from the poem prompt “Reading between the Lines” posted at Adele Kenny’s site. The poem begins:

While you were sleeping in the chair, perhaps
dreaming of an ageless character
from the unfinished novel in your lap,
the sunlight through the window lit your hair
surrounding your face in a brilliant halo.

Read entire…

~*~*~*~*~

This April I’m celebrating National Poetry Month by posting some not-as-yet published poems from my files, along with what inspired them. If the prompt inspires you to write a poem of your own, you’re welcome to share it in comments. Whether you write or not, thanks so much for dropping by!

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Talking with a stranger

Happy National Poetry Month.

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted here. My time away has had its events.

Mid-February I went to northern B.C. to be with my daughter and help with the grandkids around the birth of her baby. Their lovely baby girl arrived on February 24th.

Then on March 2nd (still at my daughter’s) I had a crazy fall on some stairs and fractured my hip. Surgery the next day put everything right (I hope) though I’m still walking with a cane and not back to normal mobility (of course I’m back at home now). That’s life for you!

Again this April I’m attempting to write a poem a day. I’m using a grab-bag of prompts to help with this: Robert Brewer’s Poetic Asides blog, Adele Kenny blog The Music In It, Martha Silano’s book The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice and others.

Today’s poem was prompted by the Poets and Writers weekly email “The Time Is Now.” This prompt is actually for creative nonfiction but who says one can’t use it for a poem?

Children are often reminded not to talk to strangers, and for good reason. As we get older, communication with strangers isn’t as dangerous, but it can still be uncomfortable. This week, think about a conversation you have had with a stranger in an awkward situation. Who started it? Did you feel safe? After talking, did you feel like you knew this person any better? Did you ever see this person again, and if not, would you want to?

On reading that prompt I immediately thought of my experience this past Monday when, after attending my physiotherapy appointment, I decided to sit and wait for hubby on the bench outside the building.

Talking with a stranger

Appointment done, the sun is out
the day is warm, the bench is long
the lady sitting there is mute
hair turbaned, leather purse is gold
she wears sunglasses and a coat.

I say, “It’s nice.” She says, “It is.”
I find my notebook and my pen.
She looks asleep but murmurs then,
“How warm is it to get today?
“Twelve or fifteen is what they say.”

Our little talk has loosed her tongue
for now the muttering has begun
not to me or anyone
within our view converses she
with ones unseen

earnestly, disgustedly
with vehemence
and sarcasm, disdainfully
while I, relieved of chat polite
can write and write and write and write.

Violet Nesdoly © 2014 (All rights reserved)

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This post is part of Poetry Friday, hosted today by Amy at The Poem Farm – a farm where poetry flourishes!

 

 

The Crafty Poet (review)

The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop by Diane Lockward

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not all poetry prompts are created equal. Diane Lockward’s are some of my favorites. I love the way she observes the poems from which she gets her inspiration (often with a dash of her sly humor), and how she leaves no stone unturned in delivering to us a range of places to look (within and around us) for something to write about.

But The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop is much more than just prompts. It contains craft tips from established poets as well as explanations of how specific poems came to be written—the wisdom of fifty-six contemporary poets in all! On top of that, it has sample poems written for all but the bonus prompts, to give us an idea of how others tackled these prompts.

The craft tips, poem explanations, and prompts are organized in ten categories that include Generating Material, Diction, Sound, Voice, Revision, and Writer’s Block. Each piece is concise and to-the-point, reflecting its origin as part of Lockward’s  free monthly newsletter (Interested in subscribing? You can do that from Lockward’s blog, Blogalicious.)

This is a book for both new and experienced poets. It’s poetry how-to plus the wisdom of one’s clan (poetry clan) all in a tidy 280-page volume.

View all my reviews