Day #7: We Wear the Masks

 Do you remember at the beginning of the school year watching the short film about how we hide our identities behind facades? Here it is if you want to refresh your memory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikGVWEvUzNM

Today's model poem is by Paul Laurence Dunbar – 1872-1906

Born on June 27, 1872, Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the first African American poets to gain national recognition. His parents Joshua and Matilda Murphy Dunbar were freed slaves from Kentucky. His parents separated shortly after his birth, but Dunbar would draw on their stories of plantation life throughout his writing career. By the age of fourteen, Dunbar had poems published in the Dayton Herald. While in high school he edited the Dayton Tattler, a short-lived black newspaper published by classmate Orville Wright. (From Poets.org)

We Wear the Mask
by Paul Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!

-----------------------------

Use Dunbar's poem as a jumping point to write a poem about masks. Take this any direction, any form. Here is where I went with mine:

End of the Mask Mandate
by Allison Berryhill

Our mandate ended on this day–
The students came without delay
Unmasked! Released! The virus done!
So free at last, the battle won!
Such ignorance was on display.

My cousin died on Monday last.
The COVID blood clots took him fast
At 58, his family stunned
I wear the mask.

I may be safe; I’m now immune.
But maskless piper plays his tune
And children skip with happy gait,
to quarters tight and congregate
Unmasked, they feel too safe too soon.
I (still) wear the mask.

-----------------

Remember you don't need to write about COVID masks...that's just one option. 

Day #6: I Don't Want to Be

Part of deciding what you want to be is knowing what you DON'T want to be. Today's model poem is by Christian Wiman, titled  “I Don’t Want to Be a Spice Store."  

As you read it, think about WHO Wiman wants to be, what kind of a person? 

Here are the opening lines:

I don’t want to be a spice store.
I don’t want to carry handcrafted  Marseille soap,
or tsampa and yak butter,
or nine thousand varieties of wine.

………

Notice that after describing the "spice store" he doesn't want to be, Wiman TURNS the poem and begins writing about the "kind of store" he does want to be:

I want to be the one store that’s open all night
and has nothing but necessities.
Something to get a fire going
and something to put one out.
………..

I encourage you to read the entire poem (it's not long, and you can also click on the link and hear the poet read it himself).

Then use the poem as your diving board to explore what you DON'T want to be (and maybe what you DO want to be).  Here is mine. Notice that I do not say explicitly what I DO want to be; I let the reader infer that from the "don'ts."

I Don't Want to be a Yellow Legal Pad
by Allison Berryhill

I don’t want to be a yellow legal pad.
I don’t want to be the surface
on which thought-filled people press ideas.
The yellow page absorbs the pressure of
urgent pens
digging two, three pages deep:
indententations of intentions.

I don’t want to be the
receptacle.
I don’t want to be the canvas
underneath the Starry Night.

I don’t want to be the
oil pan catching the dripping muck
beneath the chassis.

Day #5: "Say to Them" poem

Good morning! I'm excited that you are visiting this page and might write a poem today!

We will use Gwendolyn Brooks' fun and pointed 13-line poem “Speech to the Young. Speech to the Progress-Toward”  as our mentor poem. It is a poem that gives ADVICE to people. Keep that in mind as you think about what advice you might give to someone.

Notice that she begins by identifying those needing her advice: 

“Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers…”

Notice the buoyant word inventions she gives to gloomy people: 

Sun-slappers!
Harmony-hushers!

Next, she delivers the nut of her advice within quotation marks:

“Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”

Her poem closes with encouragement to those who are ready to consider her advice:

You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

Her final line “live in the along” is a re-statement of the advice delivered in the quotation marks earlier, but with an edge.

I invite you to mimic GB’s form as closely or as loosely as feels right to you today. Or write the OTHER poem that needs to be written today 

Process

I like to use a two-column table when writing poetry based on a model poem. This helps me return to the original and note rhythms, hyphens (!), line breaks, and sounds that inform my own poem craft. 

Here is what my poem looks like juxtaposed with GB’s.

Speech to the Young; Speech to the Progress-Toward By Gwendolyn Brooks Say to them, say to the down-keepers, the sun-slappers, the self-soilers, the harmony-hushers, “Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.” You will be right. For that is the hard home-run. Live not for battles won. Live not for the-end-of-the-song. Live in the along.

Speech to My Husband; Speech to the Fret-Drawn By Allison Berryhill Say to him, say to the knot-twister, the weather-worrier, the scorpion-minder, the half-empty-glasser, “To worry is to tear at,  to gnaw on, to drag about  with one’s teeth.” Your bite cannot masticate the unknown into submission.  Unclench your jaw. Loosen your smile. Release the bone.

Happy writing!

AB

Day #4: 20 Questions

Good morning! 

I read aloud the poem “Twenty Questions” by Jim Moore to my 18-year-old son on the drive to the airport on the day he left for a year in New Zealand. The poem is ultimately about the choices we make in our lives and the lingering doubt that underpins those choices. Its timing was perfect for my son’s departure, and its opening line has inspired me to look at the sky every day. (Check out #IowaSky on Twitter!)

Here are the opening lines:

Did I forget to look at the sky this morning
when I first woke up? Did I miss the willow tree?
The white gravel road that goes up from the cemetery,
but to where?…

Further on, this:

If I’d caught the boat
to Mykonos that time when I was nineteen
would the moon have risen out of the sea
and shone on my life so clearly
I would have loved it
just as it was?
…
The poem concludes with the haunting question:
Did I already ask that?

Process

Today I invite you to write a poem of 20 questions. Start with whatever question comes to mind, then follow that thought to the next, then another. Continue to sift through memory and images until you have (maybe) twenty questions. Consider the choices that have made a difference in your life. Maybe end your poem with “Did I already ask that?”


You may use Moore's poem as a model, as I did for this one:

Twenty Questions From My Classroom
by Allison Berryhill

Why am I here?
In this chair, by this desk?
Am I flinging finite minutes
of my life into the dusty swirl of students’ too-full thoughts?
Are my words rolling tumbleweeds skirting across this barren plain?
Where is your hall pass?
Why am I wasting breath, breath, breath?
Will another Wednesday roll out from under me in 33-minute sprints?
What do they ask?
What did I miss yesterday?
Why are we reading this?
Where’s Corbin Logeman?
And why do we say “have run” and not “have ran”?
Does it make a difference?
And to who?
Or to whom?
What is the color of teal?
Where is the receipt book?
Can I go to the nurse?

Did they learn anything?
Did I already ask that?

I look forward to reading your poems! Please feel free to respond with supportive comments to the poets who are posting here!

Happy writing!

AB

Day #3: A Bop Poem!

Good morning! I'm so glad you stopped by to write a poem. I think you'll like this form. It's called a bop, and although it doesn't rhyme or have a specific rhythm, it follows two patterns:

First, it has a set number of lines in each of its three stanzas, with a one-line refrain at the end of each stanza, like this:

6-line stanza

refrain line

8-line stanza

refrain line

6-line stanza

refrain line

The other aspect of this form is how it uses the stanzas to explore an idea. For today, I'll encourage you to write about a problem, since problems fit this form well.

1) First stanza: Introduce the problem
    (REFRAIN)

2) Second stanza: Go deeper, explore the problem
    (REFRAIN)

3) Third stanza: Resolve or solve the issue/problem
     (REFRAIN)

Here is my poem. My problem is how to return to life after COVID now that so much of my priorities and choices have been changed by COVID. I titled it "March 2021."

March 2021

I felt a lifting

as the thread-thin needle entered my arm.

This body surged toward the light.

breaking the surface, it gasped for air,

stretched to grasp a future

that pulled me aboard.

And now what?

I can/not/will/not return to pre-COVID.

Baptized,

I light a candle

and begin.

This midlife year demands I

stop, assess,

unburden, opt-out, 

undo.

And now what?

Before, I did not know it was Before.

During, I harnessed my all.

After?

A shift

and a reckoning.

I ask

Now what?

Your turn! Brainstorm several problems you have faced or are facing. Choose one to examine in a Bop! Good luck! 

Day #2: A Shadow Poem

Good morning! I'm so glad you're here, thinking about poetry. I hope you'll write today!

Consider shadows. 

What are they literally? What does it mean to shadow someone or something? Where do shadows add texture to life? Are you a shadow? Is someone or something a shadow of you? 

Here is the famous opening stanza of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "My Shadow." If you want to read the entire poem, click on the link.

I wrote my shadow poem about poetry: 

I am shadows of

my poems.

And they are shadows of me.

We cast each other in silhouette granting privacy while giving form.

My poem is  the shape of me.

I am the bulk that  blocks the sun and sets the poem free of excuses.

No one doubts  the shadow’s  reason to exist.

---------------
Try a shadow poem today! Use Stevenson's poem, or mine, as a "jumping-off point" to write your own, or close your eyes and think of shadows. What comes to mind? What do you have to say?

Happy writing!

AB

DAY #1: Try a Prose Poem!

In the introduction to the 2021 April Challenge, I showed you how I wrote a prose poem modeled after Nicolle Stellon O'Donnell.

A prose poem is written in paragraph form (like prose) but contains rich images and language (like poetry).

Give it a try!

O'Donnell's poem focused on a memory from grade school, when she and her friends conducted weddings during recess on the playground. Here it is:





















I "jumped off" O'Donnell's poem by thinking of my own memory from grade school, when my friend and I were scolded for using sign language to communicate across the classroom. Here it is:





















My invitation to you is to "jump off" O'Donnell's or my poem. That is, use it as a springboard to write your own poem. You might want to think of a memory from grade school, or from recess. Or the violets mentioned in O'Donnell's poem might spur you to write about a walk in the woods.

Now set a timer for 10 minutes. Sink into your poet mode. Write.

After 10 minutes, post what you've written--or if you're really caught up in it, give yourself another 10!

The point, if writing a poem a day, is to TRY, ACCEPT, SHARE, and RESPOND. Not everything you write will be your favorite, but by the end of the month, I can guarantee you'll have some lines you like very much!

Happy writing!

AB