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R.A. Stewart
April 12th, 2017, 12:25 PM
Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea.

Er, I mean, National Poetry Writing Month (http://www.napowrimo.net/), that is. Poem a day. Thirty days.

I spaced out and am, hmm, twelve days behind. Got some catching up to do. :blink:

~Rich

TSherbs
April 12th, 2017, 05:28 PM
I am a teacher running a poetry contest this month, but I can't crank out a poem a day. I wrote two for my class, but that was it.

R.A. Stewart
April 13th, 2017, 10:00 PM
Yes, it's a really difficult thing to do. I'm not managing it. It does seem, if I can get started for a few days, it becomes easier to keep up. And to be sure, I have to stipulate (as I mentioned in another conversation) that I am *not* going to worry about quality, if I do that level of quantity.

R.A. Stewart
April 28th, 2017, 10:58 AM
For what it's worth, having a lot of catching up to do, I wrote 14 yesterday afternoon. :bounce:

Short ones, of course. Awful, of course. Nothing to do with any of the daily prompts on the NaPoWriMo site, of course. But hey, numbers!

If I do 14 more today, I'll be caught up.

Better a specious accomplishment than none at all, sez I.

inklord
April 28th, 2017, 04:21 PM
Haiku or haiku-like little three-liners have been my way of journaling for years. I'm not claiming originality or high quality here, but it hones my senses in paying attention to the quirky little goings-on all around me that can be captured in three lines.

R.A. Stewart
April 28th, 2017, 11:45 PM
Did it. Fourteen little mostly three- to five-liners. :)

Sad poemlets to fit my mood of the last couple of days, and definitely nothing worth copying here. But I am, technically, caught up for April.

Right now I'm just dashing off this reply before going to bed, but I will come back later with a recommendation for a writing forum that I've found very useful in the past, but that is now, alas, almost uninhabited.

R.A. Stewart
April 29th, 2017, 11:58 PM
The forum I mentioned is part of a larger forum called The Town (http://www.the-town.org/). Nice people there, these days mostly an older crowd and far fewer than there used to be. I think you have to register to get in and then look for Arts.WritersCircle. (I may start a separate thread about this; I'd like to see more writers over there; lately it's been just me.)

What's useful to me is that they have a number of subjects with prompts of one kind or another.

One of the topics is "Song lyrics--by us." I've written a few songs in my time, usually music and lyrics both. This is one from that topic in The Town; I have sort of a tune in mind but haven't worked it out yet.

As I explained in its original appearance, "This one is not really specifically autobiographical, but it did come out of memories of what romance was like forty years ago, before even answering machines were commonplace, and specifically memories of calling someone, not knowing if they were home or would answer, having no way of leaving a trace of your call if no one picked up. The challenge was to convey a sense of that without expository passages for a younger generation. :-)"

Telephone

In a city long lost to the years
Lived the young man I was
Who was happy because
He'd a girl that he loved--that was you--
We would talk on the phone until two;
I lay wrapped in your voice on the wire.

I remember those nights, long ago,
And I wonder, do you
Sometimes think of them too?
It's so funny to think of a time
When you'd call from a booth for a dime,
"Is she home? Will she pick up? Or no?"

So the telephone stood on its stand,
And it rang in its spot,
And you answered, or not,
And you didn't, so you never knew
All the times that I reached out to you,
And our little romance met its end.

I've grown old; you have too, I suppose;
But somewhére there still lives
A dumb kid lost in love
Who picks up the receiver and dials,
Though he's scared, for the sake of her smile ...
And the ending, this time, no one knows.