Photo © 2018 by V. Nesdoly
Pine boughs
mittened, each finger cuddled
in quilted fleece.
© 2018 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
This morning we awoke to a winter wonderland!
The Capture Your 365 prompt today was “Prompt Free.” How convenient– a perfect invite to capture the snow on a crystalline morning.
Image: Pixabay
CORduROYcorDUroyCORduROY
WHICKwhackWHICKwhackWHICKwhack
taDAtaDAtaDAtaDAtaDAtaDAtaDA
warmCOLDwarmCOLDwarmCOLDwarm
HAPPYsadHAPPYsadHAPPYsadHAPPYsad
SUNmonTUEwedTHUfriSATsunMONtue…
janFEBmarAPRmayJUNjulAUGsepOCTnovDEC
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Prompt – Inspiration
Write a poem that highlights (puts in relief like braille) a particular texture: gritty or smooth, rubbery or sharp, slimy or dry. Do whatever you can with language and imagery to achieve this sensory effect but DON’T cue the reader by saying “This is gritty” or “This is slimy.” Make the reader feel it, almost physically, without being told what to feel. – John Drury, Creating Poetry, Writer’s Digest Books, 1991.
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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!
Image: Pixabay
It wasn’t that I could not get up
the nerve to water-ski
or that I hated
myself in a bathing suit
It was bare feet
of tanned twins
next to mine
in that Waskesiu boat
smoothly brown
as Indian princesses
nails polished
the pink of shells
beside my pasty
sandaled peasants
that made me feel
not one of the beautiful people.
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Prompt – Inspiration
The inspiration for this April 2011 poem was Adele Kenny’s memoir prompt. It begins:
For this prompt, try writing a memoir poem about an experience that haunts you. This is not to suggest a bad experience but, rather, a memory that continues to inform the present.
Memoir poems are narrative because they tell stories. However, we often see memoir “poems” that “narrate” in what is essentially prose (with a couple of good images, a few similes or metaphors, and stanzaic arrangements). Most of these poems don’t succeed because they never reach beyond the poet’s impulse to “tell.” The poem has to be more than the story – it has to be about what happened because of the story.
Read the rest of the prompt and a sample poem HERE.
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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!
This poem is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by Irene Latham at her blog Live Your Poem.
Everywhere I tune in these days I hear people talking about what a terrible year 2016 has been and good riddance to it.
I don’t feel that way at all. For me 2016 has been a wonderful year. Hubby and I are still living together in peace, we visited our distant kids three times, had a fabulous summer holiday, welcomed another beautiful granddaughter, and were spared major illnesses, accidents, falls, fires, earthquakes, storms, and floods.
Poetry-wise it hasn’t been bad either. The number of poems I wrote this year is 97 and the number of times I participated in Poetry Friday is 37.
What’s with all the 7s?
I know! Seven seems to be my little buddy (in addition to those two, there are a total of eight 7s in our address and two phone numbers). Thus when I read the prompt “Write a number poem” in Diane Lockward’s The Crafty Poet II (a wonderful book for poetry craft and prompts, by the way) I had to choose seven. The threshold of 2017 seems the right time to share it.
Image: Pixabay
It’s not that it is a prime
number of perfection
the completion of an entire week
or that it’s the address of heavenly bliss.
And though its association
with itch and deadly sins fascinate
the reason I fall for 7
is how often it has fallen for me…
so often in address and phone number
I fear one day to find myself
at 6s and 7s to remember
where all those 7s belong.
© 2016 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
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What number would you choose for a number poem?
And now I’d like to wish all my Poetry Friday Friends a 2017 so 7-perfect it deserves a 10!
This post is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by Donna (the BOLD) at Mainely Write.
Lemon (Photo – RGB Stock.com)
You are not holding a mistake
reject, or serene yellow egg
but a blonde grenade
that explodes puckering sour
all through your mouth
acid that pales
pear, apple and peach
squeeze that brings to attention
potato, souvlaki, calamari.
Its zesty shrapnel trademarks
loaf and pie, square, drop and tart.
The pungent oil its leather hide releases
sweetens even garburator’s rancid breath.
Life, hand me more!
I could use a whole arsenal
of this kind of ade.
© 2015 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)
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This poem had its beginnings on Today’s Little Ditty, Michelle Heidenrich Barnes’ blog where her excellent interviewee children’s poet Nikki Grimes ended her interview by challenging writers with a prompt. From ten possible prompt words, I chose “Lemon.” (Read the interview and prompt HERE.)
Photo by Sam Taylor Wood (via The Picture)
Frozen in
precarious leap
balanced on
chair-leg tilt—
push that chair! Engineer a
Photoshop escape.
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Yesterday’s prompt at Poetic Asides was an ekphrastic poem, based on a photo. We were given four photo choices on the site, or invited to use our own.
The shadorma, above, is based on one of the suggested photos.
Dorcas (Tabitha) – Artist Unknown
TABITHA
While others haggled over meat and fish
I caressed bolts of nubby linen
examined weave of wool
marveled at the rich lightness of silk.
When I became disciple
love of finery and fabric
was all I had to give
the Risen Wearer of the unseamed cloak.
Then I forsook my search
for that embroidered purple robe
which would proclaim “Gazelle.”
Instead stitched love for Him
into the tunics of orphaned lambs,
pieced sad raw sackcloth mantles
for widowed wives,
decorated girdles to flatteringly fit
more hopeful garments.
This day I find myself
(my needle stilled—
I couldn’t move it steady for the chills)
floating above them all
(strange how the drape of fabric
changes with perspective).
What is this place I enter
all so white (the fuller* here
must be exceptional)?
Beings of dazzle walk me arm-in-arm
to where He stands
and then I see what He is holding
in His hands
garment so gleaming white
I cannot look to tell
if it is silk, linen or purest wool.
“Gazelle!” He cries,
and I am held
by warm and welcoming eyes…
“Tabitha! Arise!”
I stare surprised
into amazed and tear-smudged faces
feel the sturdy weight of covers
hear the squeals of children
remember—it seems years ago—the tunic
I put down yesterday,
and know that I again
take up the shuttle
to weave the warp and woof of life
as ever—but not
for I have seen my robe
and looked into His eyes.
© 2007 by Violet Nesdoly
(Based on Acts 9:36-42)
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This week Adele Kenny’s poetry prompt was to write about heaven. After reading it I thought of this poem I wrote some years ago. It was inspired by the story of Tabitha from Acts 9:36-42 in the Bible. Tabitha (who is also known as Dorcas and whose name means gazelle) was an early Christian woman who got sick, died, and was then raised to life by Peter.
I’ve read many accounts of near-death experiences, and I’m sure my imaginings were influenced by those stories in my flight of fancy about how Tabitha spent the time between dying and coming back to life.
(Though written years ago, this poem fits into my current project—poems about women of the Bible.)
This post is part of Poetry Friday, hosted today by Julie Larios at The Drift Record / Julie Larios
“Tabitha” was previously published in my book Family Reunion – 2007, Utmost Christian Writers
* fuller: The word “full” is from the Anglo-Saxon fullian, meaning “to whiten.” (See complete definition, bottom, under Bible Dictionary definition.)
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