Challenges & a few PINK poems

I love challenges. I find myself eagerly jumping in to writing and art challenges of all kinds. Keeping up with them is another thing though!

This year my one-little-word is FOCUS, I’m trying to put it into practice by actually imposing some focus on my life. One area of focus is to eliminate some of the extras I get myself into that then end up becoming a burden when life gets busy. Snapping a photo a day and then using that photo as a poem prompt was one thing that I thought perhaps could go. So at the end of January I neglected to download the next month’s list of photo challenges I’ve been using.

I didn’t intentionally not download it—it just slipped my mind. As I started on my walk Thursday, February 1st, I reached automatically for the notebook with the photo list that I keep in my camera bag to see what the prompt was for the day, then realized, there was no point. I hadn’t copied it. In fact, I recalled, I was considering not following it any more at all.

Those thoughts brought on the most surprising feelings. I felt sad, bereft, abandoned, even disoriented. Now what would I look for on my walk? I would miss the mental stimulation of connecting an image with the prompt and thinking of what to say about it.

Then I remembered that I had missed a walk several days earlier and hadn’t snapped something for that prompt. I would do that. I immediately felt better.

The first thing I did when I got home was—you guessed it—downloaded the February photo challenge list. Even FOCUS will not rid me of this little lifestyle habit.

For a while I was sharing these photos and poems every day on Facebook, but it felt a bit much. So I have decided to, from time to time, post some of them here on the poetry blog. No promises, though, so there won’t be any to break!

I’m following the photo challenges from Capture Your 365 (#CY365). The February list is HERE.

Here, are a few photos & poems from last week’s prompts, which was a color week featuring PINK:

February 4 – PINK

Soft intersection
of red and white
Heather confection
Spring delight.

February 8 – SOFT PINK

Morning sky
sheets tousled, covers half off
still flushed from sleep.

February 10 – SHADES OF …

The pinks of winter are a little blue
from shivering in north and east wind’s strew.

The pinks of winter are a little green
with dreams of leaves to fill the in-between.

The pinks of winter are approaching reds
As spring soft-whispers: “Wake, you sleepy-heads.”

All poems & photos © 2018 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

 

Where I Stand

My summer poem project has given me a lot of joy… and it’s far from over. As I mentioned yesterday, I’m working on Summer Shorts, a project that combines my love of photography with my desire for poetry to be part of everyday life. Summer Shorts is writing a short poem a day, every day of summer (June 21 to September 21) based on the photo I take from the Capture Your 365 photo challenge.

I actually don’t write every day, but do take a photo every day. On days when I have extra time, I catch up, though often I find these poems practically write themselves during my walk, as words and lines come to me. I always carry a notebook, so I perch myself on a railing or park bench and capture those flighty thoughts mid-walk. Because I’ve promised myself these poems will be short, it’s not intimidating. Who can’t write 3 to 6 lines a day?

Most of the photo challenges are different each day. But a few keep recurring every month. One such is “Where I Stand.” Here’s my “Where I Stand” photo and poem for July 21st. (It happens to be the longest poem in the collection so far… a few over my required 6 lines.)

#CY365 photo for July 21, 2017 –  “Where I Stand” (Photo © 2017 by V. Nesdoly)

pat a dog,
photo the fog

pick a bloom,
pixel a room

chat with a friend
ponder the bend

follow my nose
to smell a rose

stop for a hare
hopping who knows where

admire the herd
find the lyric bird

be lured to tarry
and munch on a berry

my motto for a summer walk:
“Always be prepared to stop!”

© 2017 by Violet Nesdoly (All rights reserved)

*************
This post is linked to Poetry Friday, hosted today by our very talented troubadour Donna at Mainely Write.