i know not everyone has the time or internet capacity to watch video clips online, but if you do then i encourage you to watch this one. It speaks directly into the Americaland conversation at the moment in terms of violence from police offers on black young men but also just a greater focus on the bias of society, and particularly white society when it comes to black young men. i believe it has a [...]
[And now for today’s prompt: Today I challenge you to write an abecedarian poem – a poem with a structure derived from the alphabet. There are a couple of ways of doing this. You could write a poem of 26 words, in which each word begins with a successive letter of the alphabet. You could write a poem of 26 lines, where each line begins with a successive letter.] Making sense of the letters in [...]
[Our prompt for the day (optional, as always) plays of our resources. Today, I challenge you to write a visual poem. If that’s not specific enough, perhaps you can try your hand at a calligram? That’s a poem or other text in which the words are arranged into a specific shape or image.] Waterless a drop of water might seem to be inconsequential but in these times of incessant drought even one single solitary drop [...]
[And now, without further ado, our prompt (optional as always) for Day Eight: today I challenge you to write a palinode. And what’s that? It’s a poem in which the poet retracts a statement made in an earlier poem.] It has always been you It has been claimed This by myself In previous Aubade, That coffee was The thing i dreamt of When in bed i laid However, when my wife it read She was [...]
Two steps forward and then one to the right. I stand and wait, watching... guarding... carefully listening to my own heavy breathing... I try to remain focused completely on the spaces around me, watching for you, zoning out of the chatter and in on any nearby movement that may be about to occur. This time you will not get by me. I am ready, alert, prepared for the inevitability of your attack. One thing in mind, [...]
So sometimes when i'm not myself i become this guy Brad Fish who has a whole series of videos warning people about Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect [DTYCLE] which were either funny or not, depending on whether you found them funny or not. And then today, i discovered that sometimes when i'm not Brad Fish, i might end up becoming Erik [with a K] Erik loves poetry and the soothing effect it has on him [...]
[And now our prompt: keeping to the theme of poetry’s value, Wallace Stevens famously wrote that “money is a kind of poetry.” So today, I challenge you to write about money! It could be about not having enough, having too much (a nice kind of problem to have), the smell, or feel, or sensory aspects of money. It could also just be a poem about how we decide what has value or worth.] hidden treasures [...]
It’s Good Friday. I am sitting in a coffee shop. In Manenberg. A community that is often perceived as hopeless, as a being a part of the cycle of violence and structures and things that will not change. Yet, as I sit in this coffee shop hope prevails. Part of the reason for this is that there are hope bringers in this community as much as there are gangs and drugs and violence. One of [...]
[Today’s prompt springs from the form known as the aubade. These are morning poems, about dawn and daybreak. Many aubades take the form of lovers’ morning farewells.] Just For A Second as i stumble out of bed, you are nowhere to be found i had hoped that you would be waiting for me but no, yet again it seems like i will have to be the one to come downstairs and chase after you my mind [...]
[National Poetry Writing Month - composing a poem a day based on a prompt - Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read - and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it!] I, not Death, stood up it was not death. I [...]