NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 15

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 15
CARRYING A TUNE
Do you have the courage to attempt today’s prompt, written by RWP member Dale? If you haven’t practiced being silly in a while, this is the perfect assignment for you: In a nice private place, pick out a stanza, or a few lines, that you like from a poem that you don’t otherwise feel was very successful. Say them over to yourself. Now hum them. See if you can find the tune. And now sing them aloud. (Who cares if you can sing? You’re in private. And this is poetry!) Throwing away the rest of the poem, write two more stanzas (stand-alone or connected) that go to the same tune. No fair doing it silently!

HERE'S MINE:

PLEASE PRETTY
I need somebody to love me
I need somebody new
I need somebody to love me
I need somebody true

Pretty Please Pretty
Pretty Pretty Please
Pretty Pretty Pretty
Please Pretty Please

I think she looks like Goldilocks
And she sure looks like you
Yeah you drive me crazy babe
I love you oh so true

Chorus

I need somebody to hug me
I need somebody blue
I need somebody to hold me
How I wish it was you

Chorus

I need somebody to love me
Tonight might be too late
I need somebody to love me
Please Pretty be my date

Repeat

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Day 15 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 14

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 14
I was going to do Nicole Nicholson's prompt over at Read Write Poem, but when I went to have a look at the sample site for The Cleave my computer went crazy and it has taken all day to settle down. In the meantime I did the prompt at Three Word Wednesday on their super new site. And I wrote what I intended to be a fantastic poem, which in reality fizzled down into a simple Syllabic Cinquain, thank you Adelaide Crapsey.

HERE'S MY FANTASTIC POEM:

POETS
full of wonder
amaze you, inform you
create... stagger you, annoy you...
Astound!
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Day 14 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 13

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 13
I'm going to give you something a little different today. I was thinking about time, and how you can stop the clock from ticking. You need to mix a little imagination with a little known fact to achieve this goal. Doktir Nairobi once told me that 'You are where you think you are' and I've always found this to be true. He also gave me a meditative mantra: 'Think about Month 60' .
MONTH 60
Now Month 60, can be used for many things, and in this application we're going to examine (briefly) how to time travel backwards. Okay, with your eyes closed, I want you to think about Month 60, in the background you can hear a clock ticking, I want you to de-tune and mentally stop that clock from ticking. Then I want you to imagine a clock face, it can be any clock face, and I want you to watch the minute hand.
MANTRA
With your eyes still closed, I want you to repeat the mantra, the minute hand on the clock face will now start moving at the speed of the second hand. The second hand remains stopped. (Don't worry if you can still hear the clock ticking. Just imagine the ticking as being the speed of sound.) Now as time speeds up, each minute becomes one hour, and very soon it begins to get dark, or light, depending on what time of day you are doing this. In just five minutes, you have travelled five hours back in time. You didn't even move, time moved on without you, and when you open your eyes, and blink, you'll be right back where you started.
MARKETING
Month 60 is sometimes called the sixty day month or cycle, and many business people use it as a secret marketing tool. They don't know why it works for them, it just does, and it never fails. You can test it yourself, if you have a company or charity newsletter to publish, don't go the monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly route. Simply publish it every sixty days, you'll be amazed as your circulation explodes. The other application is to publish a daily, it could be a newspaper, or a news bulletin. Or just a poem or a blog entry - the trick is to publish exactly 24 hours between each one. When you stop the clock from ticking, Month 60 is exactly twenty four hours.
SELLING
If you're selling books, you can leave them on display for sixty days, and then refresh the stock. The people who do this, take them to non-bookshop outlets and leave them with retailers on a sale or return basis. They then go back with new stock on the sixtieth day, and collect 50% of the sales money. The sales pitch to the retailer is: Are you interested in 100% lines?
The books? They just sell themselves. Think of Month 60!
HERE'S MY POEM:

HOW TO

TIME TRAVEL

BACKWARDS

Mandy say’s, I can’t stop time.

Oh, but you can stop it ticking.

Not that anyone would want to.

They wouldn’t would they, why?

How about time travel backwards?

She didn’t know what to think!

I don’t think it’s possible, is it?

Xenophanes never mentioned it…

Think about Month 60, stop the clock.

You’re moving backwards, 24 hours.

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Day 13 2009

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Answer to yesterday's secret code..

NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 12

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 12
SECRET CODES
We are more than one-third through NaPoWriMo. If you feel like you’ve started to make things up (two parts desperation, one part coffee grinds), then Carolee Sherwood’s prompt for Day 12 will play into your hand. Make up a secret code. Begin by writing a few nonsense sentences, like “The raindrops tap out a cry for help” or “The dandelions are saying all at once, ‘You are overwhelmed.’” The formula is easy: come up with a message and assign it to something unlikely. Remember, of course, that inanimate objects can speak and that signs and symbols may be nonverbal. Once you have a few sentences, select the one that is most intriguing to you and use it to start a poem.

HERE'S MINE:
This prompt was right up my street! I love secret codes and messages and riddles and anagrams. I think I strayed from Carolee's prompt, but it was the prompt that got me to write this. So:

EATING DAFF'S
Emit the tin age man drank all the gin
ate all the food and then swallowed
the gate. In the garden the daffodils
in bloom are eating all the daisies
now the daisies are eating daff's for lunch.
Ganite, the food agent I met Monday
declared it an eating disorder,
and said: But don't get in a pickle
fret not or the eating daff's may
fear that they will be beaten
soon, how would you unscramble this?
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Day 12 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 11

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY11
THE THING YOU DIDN'T CHOOSE
RWP member Angie Werren invites us to write about the choice we didn’t make: Everyday we make choices. Some are small: English breakfast or Lipton? the highway or back roads? Some are more significant: convertible or mini-van? farmhouse or condo? Some choices lead us straight into the life we’re living, but for this poem, think about one of the things in your life you didn’t choose. Be concrete. Pick an object — something tangible* — and write your poem directly to it, as if you were writing it a personal letter. Explain why you didn’t choose it. What could things have been like if you had? Talk about what your life has become without it. See where the “confession” takes you. *As an alternative, dig a little deeper and write your poem to a person you left behind.

HERE'S MINE:

NUMBER SIX

in the playground

you said you would

be my friend forever,

forty years ago,

the same day you

choked my mum to death

Hollywood and the

movie actors told me

you were cool too

I dreamed of passing

clouds of making a

lucky strike on TV

it took me thirty five

years to figure you out,

when you told me

I was dying for you,

you really should have

told me that you

were killing me little

by little forty times a

day and all that money

that went up in flames,

trusting you was my first

mistake I could have

lived longer, healthier,

taken a holiday, bought

myself a brand new car

or played a game of tennis

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Day 11 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 10

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 10
CELEBRATE!
RWP member Pamela Sayers says, “I live in Mexico, and one of the things I love most about this country is that people here celebrate their family and friends to the utmost.” And it is in that spirit that Pamela asks us to write about any celebration we have been to recently.Write about a birthday party, a wedding, a baptism — any kind of celebration where you were with family or friends or both. Write about the colors you remember, the sounds (and how they made you feel) and the tastes you remember from any of those events. Did these things make you feel good? Did you experience any new foods? Did you meet any new people? Sometimes, beyond our control, festivities can take a turn for the worse. Maybe that happened to you or someone you know. Whatever happened, be it great or not so great, let’s write about it!
HERE'S MINE:
I thought about this one for a long time, and rejected several ideas. In the end this one came out, I had lots more to say, but the poem itself told me to end on 'hits the switch' I wanted to put something about her sitting on an electric chair, but she said no. Now I guess we'll never know what she wrote in her diary, phew!

CELEBRATION

she lies there under the blossom tree

looking up and trying to count the specks

mentally thanking the big bang (in theory)

for the warmth of spring and the coming summer

she writes something quickly in her diary

and hides it under the pile of washing

feeling guilty for taking even a short break

eventually she goes back to the house

it’s the twins birthday and it’s party time

in another hour the bib gang will be here

spilling jelly and choking on cup cakes

she loads the washing machine and hits the switch

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Day 10 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 9

YOUR MISSION

RWP member Robert Peake has shared with us a prompt he used recently with one of his established writing groups:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to:

• Use at least twelve words from this list: flap, winter, torch, pail, jug, strum, lever, massage, octopus, marionette, stow, pumice, rug, jam, limp, campfire, startle, wattle, bruise, chimney, tome, talon, fringe, walker;
• Include something that tastes terrible;
• Include some part (from a few words to several lines) of a previous poem that didn’t quite pan out; and
• Include a sound that makes you happy.

Write a poem!

HERE'S MINE:
I used eleven small words and one big word: rug, jam, jug, flap, pail, stow, limp, strum, torch, wattle, tome, and campfire. Seagull soup is the thing that tastes terrible. The puppy dog bit is from an old daft poem. And the Scream! is the sound that makes me happy. Don't you just love screaming?? In addition to this I threw in a bit of rhyming slang: hit 'n' miss, jam-jar, brown bread, and humpty dumpty. And just for good measure a couple of words spelt backwards: Krap and bog! Phew!!

SEAGULL SOUP
Camping with the Wattle Street Bunch
Twelve of us in a ten-man
went. Everything but the kitchen...
Drink a jug of Scrumpy, Humpty.
Dump tea in the back of the jam-jar.
Through the tent flap, torch in gob
to park in a pail of hit 'n' miss
propped up on a weighty tome
Shakespeare, limp back,
roll up the Afghan rug.
Down on the streets where
the puppy dogs meet and the
big dogs mate by the back alley
where Gordon met his fate,
that's where the rats come...
...flip, flap - flop!
The camp mother gave his banjo
a strum, waking us up from this. Scream!
Marzi (he forgot to stow the pan)
did when we got him back at brunch -
by dropping a brown bread seagull
in his oil drum of soup on the campfire.
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Day 9 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 8

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 8
UNUSUAL LOVE CONNECTIONS
Valentine’s Day is long past, says RWP member Jill Crammond Wickham, but we poets must keep up our reputation as the world’s foremost experts on writing about love!
Today, think of your current love, your current obsession or the one who got away. Now come up with five or more unusual metaphors for the object of your affection/obsession: wool scarf, cough drop, puddle, half-empty bottle of red wine… Choose your favorite of the bunch and write a poem celebrating (or trashing) your love.
HERE'S MINE:
I wasn't sure which way to go with this one, in the end I chose half a dozen lines from some of my old 'love' poems. If you want to have a look at them, please feel free to do so.
I knew she was you by the way her hair blew, You are my lyric and my tune, Fancy a quick dance? Goodbye, I don't think so, Goodbye old boat race, Which way ever the wind blows.
After five or six revisions, I came up with this:

TUESDAY MOON

Last Tuesday moon wind

met Gale lost June

fine lyrics she blew

gust hurricane tune

rock dancin' single

'til next Tuesday moon.

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Day 8 2009

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Phew, thanks for reading this, I know you love me, but if you follow me, I'll LOVE YOU too!

NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 7

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 7
LOVE SUNNY SIDE UP
Today, Alan Summers wants us to write poems about “humor in love,” and he has a specific form in mind!
Write and capture humorous incidents related to love in a 5-line love poem called a tanka. (You may even decide to create your own tanka journal for love poems!) Here’s how to write one:

1. Describe in concrete terms one or two simple images (two or three lines) from your humorous love encounter, not just what you saw but also what you tasted, touched, smelled or heard.
2. What were you were thinking at the time this love encounter happened? Write that down, too, as two or three lines, so you have five lines in total for the poem.
3. Think about making the third line of your poem into a pivot line, so that it links to both the previous two lines and to the final two lines.
4. Test the tanka by dividing it into two parts so the third line acts both as the last line of the first part and as the first line of the second part. Does each section make sense separately, and then together?
5. Think about reducing — and even avoiding — capitalization and punctuation because a tanka needn’t be like a sentence or merely a flat statement.
6. HERE'S MINE:

LOVERS IN THE AIR

Up in a balloon

straw basket bangs sucking gas

lovers in the air

no haystack needles, I pray

or this baby's going down

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Day 7 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 6

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 6

Posted to Read Write Poem
and at my Proper Joe's blog.

I wrote a NaiSaiKu for The NaiSaiKu Challenge?
and a NanoAmerico^  for The American Sandwich game..

The Tuesday prompt was to write your own American Sentence and choose a Sandwich game to play:

My Sentence: When Dave told her that their pet robot would soon need a new memory.

Here's my NanoAmerico^

"She won't obey me," said Dawn.

When Dave told her that their pet robot would
soon need a new memory.

"Can she have a sex change too?" Dawn pleaded.

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Here's my NaiSaiKu :

Tuesday rain

wets my chewing gum

HAIKU CHEW

wets my chewing gum

Tuesday rain.

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Day 6 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 5

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 5
We’ve been in the trenches for a few days, and so Mark Stratton says it’s time to get personal! Here’s Mark’s prompt for Day #5:
Make your poetry personal. I mean, it already is, right? It’s thoughts, observations, deep, dark, personal feelings and stories dressed up in pretty words and oblique descriptions. You get it, and some others get it.
Still others see it as something else entirely, which is great, honestly. We have our own set of filters our lives go through, and this influences how we interpret things. It is part of what makes reading poetry fun and interesting for me.
Today, let’s make poetry really personal. Give poetry, as you write it, a name. Possibly a gender. And a personality. A poet I know has written (and continues to write) a series of poems based on this principle, and I shamelessly ripped it off (with permission, of course) and made a poem I called “Sasha.” Sasha is many things, all at the same time, yet all are Sasha/poetry to me.
So it’s your turn. Give poetry — how you view poetry, what poetry means to you, your poetry — a name. Now write a poem (that) suits your view or vision.

NATASHA
I wrote mine about Natasha, I've mentioned her before in Whatever happened to the corner shop and in Surveillance. Today I asked her what she thought about poets, and she said 'they talk to themselves all day long.' So I wrote down what she said and everytime she said themselves I changed the word to Natasha. It's a bit experimental, so I hope you like it.
HERE GOES:

I HATE POETS

I hate poets she said, they talk to Natasha all day

and when they're not talking to Natasha
they're talking about Natasha

I wish I could get a job like that.

Poets are boring Natasha stiff
they're too self indulgent

they spend all their time looking at Natasha

their poetry's not creative, it's just reflective

like the image of Natasha they see in the mirror.

NATASHA

AH SATAN!

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Day 5 2009

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hAPPYbIRTHDAY

NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 4

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 4
Nelle Lytle encourages you to keep going with your NaPoWriMo poems by writing inside-out or outside-in. She says: I watch too much HGTV, so I have learned (very well) about bringing the outdoors inside and also turning outside spaces into rooms (which is, apparently, more than putting the old sofa out on the front porch).
In our case, writing inside out (or outside in) means setting your physical or metaphorical inner bits out of doors,  to be walked around and looked at from odd angles, as if they were monuments or mailboxes (as an example).  Or it could be transforming your internal organs into flowers or letting a pack of four-year-old’s (human or otherwise) loose in your attic. Write a poem today that illustrates your idea of what is inside-out.

Here's mine:
Using the theme 'inside out' I immediately thought of a NaiSaiKu because the title is in the middle instead of at the top.

So here goes:

Vegetables scream

at the Vegan Kitchenette

IN HER LIVING ROOM

at the Vegan Kitchenette

vegetables scream

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2009 Day 4

Also posted to The NaiSaiKu Challenge?

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 3

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY 3

It’s daunting to take on a commitment as large as NaPoWriMo, but here you are. Today is Day 3, and you are facing your fears. RWP member Joseph Harker thinks there’s a poem in that; here’s his prompt for you:
Write about something that scares you. It could be tarantulas or your significant other cheating on you or an existential fear of the unknown so long as it unsettles you. Describe it in the most vivid language possible!
Sometimes by articulating our fears, we strip them of their power. (But don’t go too far! A little fear is good to have.)
Here's mine:

SKULL THUGGERY DIY

Scared afraid of Black and Decker doctors

Doctors chasing me with knives and hammers

Hammers hitting chisels into my skull

Skull thuggery that’s what those doctors do

Do they have to tell you that you might die

Die if you have the op - die if you don’t

Don’t they know that I’m scared stiff already

All ready to have your operation?

Operation knives are sterilised phew!

Phew, there’s no turning back they’re going through

Through my head to improve my brain remove...

Remove my brain? they’ve got to find it first

First thing I thought when they told me of this

This is the worst thing DIY I’m scared.

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Day 3 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 2

NAPOWRIMO DAY 2
It’s Day 2! And Read Write Poem member Therese Broderick has a great prompt for you. (Please don’t expect the introductions to all of our NaPoWriMo prompts to rhyme):

If you love acronyms as I do, your mind has already shortened “Read Write Poem” into “RWP.” But the three letters RWP form known acronyms for at least 31 other phrases, including “Random Weird Person” and “Right Wing Pundits.”
Today’s writing prompt is to type the letters RWP into the abbreviation search field at Acronym Attic and write a poem inspired in any way by one or more of the resulting phrases. You don’t have to use the words from the phrase in your poem, but you can if they fit. GLWI (Good Luck With It)!

Here's mine :

RANDOM WRITING PROMPTER

Cher can prompt something wry.

Writer sings random prompt 

prompts wry prompter ranting.

Sings prompt, ran writer home.

Come sing her prompt, wry rant.

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Day 2 2009

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NaPoWriMo 2010 Day 1

NAPOWRIMO 2010 DAY ONE
The Read Write Poem prompt:
First up on our prompt-writing roster is Donna Vorreyer, who answered our call for prompts with immediate enthusiasm. Thank you Donna; thank you to all our members who provided prompts!
Donna says she uses this idea all the time for both herself and her students to force new language and connections into drafts.

1. Put your iPod or iTunes (or other mp3 player) on shuffle. (If you don’t have a music player that shuffles, you can choose CD or album titles at random from your collection by writing several titles down on little slips of paper … works the same way.)
2. Write down the first five titles that come up. No cheating allowed!
3. Use all five titles to draft a new poem. They have to be used intact — you can interrupt them with punctuation, but you may not remove or change words.

Shuffle away — the more eclectic your music collection, the better!




Here's my titles: 
Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Bohemian Rhapsody, Coney Island Baby, Five Little Speckled Frogs, Where Do You Go To My Lovely.

And my poem:

CONEY ISLAND

watching her every move

waiting to pounce

as she staggers

to bohemian rhapsody

she’s no coney island baby

he thinks as she

slowly inches her way

through the crowds

towards the floor

taking his chance he asks

where do you go to my lovely?

she lights a cheroot

who’s askin’ colonel bogey?

fancy a quick dance?

he pushes for a response

five little speckled frogs?

leave it out will yuh

who are yuh anyway

sergeant peppers lonely

hearts club band or what?

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Day 1 2009

NaPoWriMo 2010

NaPoWriMo 2010
Okay it's nearly April and that means NaPoWriMo which stands for National Poetry Writing Month. The idea is to write a poem for each day of April. I will be writing one each day on this blog, and posting it to my Proper Joe's bloggage. You can find out more about NaPoWriMo and how you can participate by clinking~the~link to Maureen's site.
IN THE MEANTIME
While you're waiting for this years poem's you can of course check out last years entries. Mine are all listed in the side-bar with clickable links to each day. Then again, if you've already read them, you'll find a new one below that I only wrote today. I've thrown in a few Geordie words for good measure, please let me know if you like it.

SKINNY DIPPIN'
I'm gannin down to Whitley Bay
To my hinney in her pink pinny.
We'll climb the light-hoose every day
and live on Fish 'n' Chips.
Me North Sea skinny dippin' hinney
she'll flash her bits to passin' ships
and the Limey sailors on the briney
will toss their caps an' shout 'Cor Blimey!'
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Breaking News!!!

 BREAKING NEWS

 I've just been informed that this blog has been listed in the following article:

We posted an article, "100 Best Poetry Blogs" (http://www.accreditedonlinecolleges.com/blog/2010/100-best-poetry-blogs/). I just thought I'd share it with you in case you thought it would appeal to your readers. I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in this list.

 Please scroll down the right hand side bar where you can clink-the-links to over 200 of my poems.

You can read my current work on my Proper Joe's blog

Nice to see you here, and many thanks for reading this.

Never say Never...

Just when you thought it was safe to ignore me...

BUY MY BOOK
Okay, so you've got loads of money and nothing to spend it on, right? Well look no further, this is your opportunity to BUY MY BOOK . You see, I've got a few of my little poetry books that I used to sell for beer money (at the different pub-poetry nights that I used to attend). The one I'm selling here, right now to YOU is called PROPER TROG and OTHER NURSERY NONSENSE and it's a little rhyming thingy that I wrote for my son, when he was a baby. It's going to cost you £2.95 post paid, if you live in the UK or £3.95 for any place else. And here's the deal - You simply send the dosh to my publisher and he'll mail you the goods by return post. But wait, there's more... Like you I don't NEED the money, but I know somebody who does, so for each book we sell I will donate the full cover price of £2.95 GBP to my fave charity MANCHESTER ATAXIA and pay any extra postage that is necessary out of my own pocket. Right, how many copies DO YOU WANT? Oh yes, my Publisher is RAWPRINTZ MANCHESTER.. and you can e-mail him at: propertrog@aol.co.uk