Kirstin's Dance Recital #3

Kirstin's Dance Recital #2

Kirstin's Dance Recital - June 6, 2014

Kirstin is the one second from the right.

Bragging Rights

Okay, it's been a long time since I've posted photos of the kids, which was the original intention of this blog, by the way.  I let my beautiful, photos spamming, kid blog get tarnished by silly things like creative writing.  Enough of that, you need a kid fix, don't you?  

Well, I just happened to have received some gorgeous ones today and I can't help but share them!

Enjoy!

  

Alex, age 9

Connor, age 7

 Kirstin, age 6

 Brooklynn, age 1.5

C'est fini!

And now for our final (yet still optional!) prompt. Today, as befits the final poem of NaPoWriMo, I challenge you to write a poem of farewell. It doesn’t have to be goodbye forever — like I said, NaPoWriMo will be back again next year. If you need a little inspiration, you might find some in perusing this selection of goodbye-and-good-luck poems from the Poetry Foundation website.

Happy writing, everyone, and good-bye, and see you next year!

The terzanelle is a modified villanelle. It uses the terza rima's interlocked rhyme pattern, but fits the villanelle form of five triplets and a quatrain. In addition, the middle line of the 1st stanza becomes the third line of the next stanza, and so on, such that the terzanelle is a huge pain, but worth the effort and determination to finish.

A Farewell to April

It is difficult word to say

When one must summon an honest farewell

Farewell to April, welcome sweet May

It does not pay to consistently dwell

On the sodden grass and cool damp air

When one must summon an honest farewell

April rolls out quietly, brown and bare

Signs of life emerge, so tentative

On the sodden grass and cool damp air

The birds return and the flowers live

As the month comes to a final close

Signs of life emerge, so tentative

There's poetry in spring, sweeter than prose

Ceasing with the last of winter's remains

As the month comes to a final close

Farewell dank earth, farewell melting rains

It is a difficult word to say

Ceasing with the last of winter's remains

Farewell to April, welcome sweet May

-Laura Freeman-

April 30, 2014

WTF kind of a prompt is that?????

A Tanka

Today's prompt scares me

Twenty challenges, one poem

No one can do that

At least not without more time

Tonight I would rather sleep.

... aww, what the hell, I'll give it a whirl...

I'm a little too tired tonight to attempt the prompt:

Sleep is an elusive mistress

I haven't slept in eighteen days

My bed beckons, it smells of fresh laundry

It is soft, colourful, tastes like lint, and rustles

The blankets smell blue and fuzzy.

Laura doesn't understand synesthesia

When she's in Vanderhoof

Last night while I slept,

I dreamed that I was flying

I'm flying to Newfoundland in July

For a wedding

I am practicing my Newfinese

If I'm not well versed in the local slang,

The lobster won't taste as sweet

And I won't be able to wish the newlyweds

A hearty "Long may your jib draw."

The province, it beckons with its

Salty air of friendship

I had to google abstract noun

on my typewriter

Which I immediately dismantled

and put back together in

alphabetical order

Mommy doesn't have a nickname,

Just a title.

Mommy will be amazed by all the sights that

She will see in Newfoundland

The land surrounded by the

Uncoordinated Atlantic

C'est la vie

While the airplane laughs in the sky

And I sleep.

-Laura Freeman-

April 29th

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor.
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least one image for each of the five senses, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you’ve never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of talk you’ve actually heard (preferably in dialect and/or which you don’t understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: “The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun) . . .”
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he or she could not do in “real life.”
14. Refer to yourself by nickname and in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poem seems to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement, but that “echoes” an image from earlier in the poem.

Status

I took a lot of poetic license interpreting today's prompt: "Today I challenge you to find a news article, and to write a poem using (mostly, if not only) words from the article! You can repeat them, splice them, and rearrange them however you like. Although the vocabulary may be “just the facts,” your poem doesn’t have to be — it doesn’t even have to be about the subject of the news article itself. Happy writing!"  Since I rarely watch the news anymore, I glean most of my current events from my "news feed", which is, arguably, mostly rubbish. So, here is a snippet of what my "friends" have to say, today.

Today on Facebook
No one announced their pregnancy
Or bad-mouthed their boyfriend

No one posted a funny quip
about their children's quirkiness,
Or slung offensive thoughts
About abortion or gay rights.

Instead, I learned that:

Your chocolate shell is a vessel
In search of music
To my fetal family,
Celebrate
Pickled ram testicles
Does anyone else's skin crawl?
This has got to stop,
It's only been twenty-four years
For a long time
I didn't even notice.
Blame your sister!
I always enjoy those afternoons
Supported instead of judged.
Time to get a move on'
Love is louder.
If you want to interrupt, feel free,
What's the worst that can happen?

It was a slow day on my wall.
Time to socialize with real people.
Alas, they're all sitting front of their screens

Knackered now

From their status updates!

-Laura Freeman-
April 28, 2014