Day 5/30 (we'll catch 1-4 later maybe)

With thanks to NaPoWriMo for the prompt:

This country is a child with a grandfather’s history

and here, I am a newborn.

So the light blinds, life’s soundtrack deafens, each new smell becomes

an instant shared taste while phantom electrics prickle my flesh.

I feel the smells. I taste the lights and the sounds

dance in the air.

In Táiwān, my name is Freedom. Zìyóu. from the motto of Clan Wallace,

and here, I am a grandmother.

Who on this earth loves their chains?

My whip is only three or four horses;

because of this I am always outdoors.

“Nǐ hǎo,” they say, or if they really mean it, “Lí hé.”

The genuine greeting of a people mixplaced.

Snaking roads take you straight to where you should be

and I fly with my horses to every home I find.

Zìyóu and her tiny team of horses

will never tire of traveling here,

this raucous country, these patient beaches, these smoking hills.

Born 150 degrees from here but this is my home.

Lí chia̍h pá bōe? Chia̍h pá-ah!

My three horses together are one humble scooter, carrying me like a newborn,

a grandmother, feeling the language on electric skin.

1/30: "trampstamp"

Alternative Names for the Tramp Stamp that are not Misogynistic Perjoratives:

classy lassy chasis
lady shade
dame frame
fancy expanse
vamp stamp
fetch sketch
spine design
hip clip
think ink
hiney lines
love letter
lumbar star
quaint paint
smart art
ace space
rad pad
back plaque
queen scene
empress finesse
goddess bodice
Susan B Canopy
Sor Juana Inez de caboose
Lucy Zone
Simone de booty-flair
Anais grin
Sylvia path
glorious spine-end
Rita Mae Crown
Joan threat

one of the most sensible places on the body to get tattoo work done when one takes into account the vast flat space, ease of work for the artist, and how the body changes over time

misogynist litmus

Welcome Back, April

National Poetry Month. It's already the First here in Taiwan, where it isn't national poetry month at all, but whatever. Here's a resource for people that I hope can help, my compiled bookmarks of poems to read, advice for writers, places to submit, and most importantly for this month: PROMPTS.

Link here!

August challenge to myself: 31 days of editing and submitting.

2014 NaPoWriMo 30/30 Challenge Recap

• The first April I've written a poem a day every day without missing a day in a few years.
• Made this blog's 250th post.
• Welcomed this blog's 14,000th view.
• Deepened friendships with other poets sharing during the month.
• Got some new material I didn't like, got some new material I did.

Looking forward:

• Intending to start editing more and drafting less.
• Intending to submit to some journals.
• Have a goal to acquire 100 rejection letters - so far I have 3, so only 97 more to go!

Thank you everyone who read.  Thank you even more those who commented.  Communication and support mean so much to me.  Thanks most to those who also wrote that I got to read.  I'm so full from this past month.  So much love.  Thank you all.

So Far This April:

I have killed my rapist twice (in one poem I killed another seven or so people), written two more poems about my assault (in one my abuser is merely forgotten into oblivion) and another about the boss who confessed to me he raped someone (he's in the body count of the previously mentioned seven or so).  I wrote a poem about drowning five children.  I have written 6 poems about my new crush and surprisingly only two about my most recently failed relationship (despite it having lasted four years).  I wrote one poem that was much too long and one which was a copout haiku.  I wrote a poem about going fast on my scooter and another about a woman trying to catch a rooster.  What will follow?  Stay tuned to see!

SHARING A RESOURCE WITH POETS

I've been working on these bookmarks for a long long time now.

CLICK HERE FOR A LOT OF AMAZING HELPFUL POETRY STUFF

My bright idea has been to start saving awesome poetry links and organizing them.  It'll never be perfect, but from time to time I click alphabetize on them cuz why not or try to sort out stuff that hasn't made it into a folder yet.

Anyway, within you have some general poetry related stuff, and then folders.  One is links to super amazing awesome poetry if you want to have a read or watch a video.  One is a folder with links to amazing sites for prompts.  One is a folder of links to publishers and publishing resources.  There's a folder of scholarships and a folder of advice.

Share it if you'd like, but please let people know (and know yourself, too) that I'm always looking to tighten this resource up so if you have stuff I should add holler back, or find a link to a dead end let me know.

2014 30/30 NaPoWriMo Challenge Kick-off: Day 1

Day 1 is a visual poem, because I can, damnit, and a love poem because I have an awesome requited crush.  So look out for that this month.

9/4makeup: day9pome4. Translitic!

DIE LIEBE DER STAR BY JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Es fällt ein Stern herunter

Aus seiner funkelnden Höh’!

Das ist der Stern der Liebe,

Den ich dort fallen seh’.

Es fallen vom Apfelbaume                                            

Der Blüten und Blätter viel

Es kommen die neckenden Lüfte

Und treiben damit ihr Spiel.

Es singt der Schwan im Weiher

Und rudert auf und ab,                                             

Und immer leiser singend

Taucht er ins Flutengrab.

Es ist so still und dunkel!

Verweht ist Blatt und Blüt’,

Der Stern ist knisternd zerstoben,                                 

Verklungen das Schwanenlied.

This was the *very first* attempt at transliterating.  I had to punch a rather lot of the words into Google Translate and ask her to pronounce them for me so I could try a listen.  Sometimes I just gave up and went with something closer to the spelling.  After this first transliteration, my physical brain was in actual pain.  It's crazy messy!

Die, Libby, the star

Is fault in stern her under

Odds signer funk phone golden her

That’s east there stern there libby

Then its door fallen see

It’s fallen from apple balm

there blue ten and ladder feel

It’s coming, the neck in then loose, duh

Untried bun damnit ears peel

It’s singed there swan in wire

under dirt awful dab

un dimmer laser sing and

daughter in flute in grab

assist so still and uncle

for what is blood and blue?

the stern is niece turned there stolen

fear clung and that’s swan in lead

Four editversions later, I have this, which I will continue to revise, but here it is for now, just in time to finish the 9/4 challenge.

Deliberate Star:

It is not your fault if stern,

odd signs hang, golden and funky, calling

you to go east.  Stars will stop

in the door to think before falling into the sea.

They fall under apple trees,

leaving behind letters written in blue ink,

you’ll feel them coming, nooses on their necks

that untie when they hear your curses.

Their electricity singes swans

as they crash deep into the earth,

dimming out like neon signs,

singing, their voices like flutes.

Sit still among the trees.

Your veins are as blue as their letters

and your knees may swell from kneeling

in fear while the swans softly bleed.

The atom bomb apologizes (2/30)

I am a song of death never meant
to be sung.  I did not write myself
into being, I was collaged, Frankenstein-style,
by men with minds
like sunshine, angry and not angry.
I am a rain of ruin, a crash
of becoming, a ballet of regret.
I am so hungry all the time.
I only meant to breathe and now
there are entire parts of the world
in which you must not stop the car
or even drive it at all.
Give me your hair, each precious
twisting strand, your white blood cells,
proud soldiers, one by one.  In return I will give you
cell clusters like constellations, exploding fast
like supernovas, like myself, will give your children
extra legs to run.

Day 16/30, poem 14/30: more from the list of deaths

The Spectacular Voodoo of György Dózsa

If he had one magic, it was
to inspire, to fill, to nourish and he believed
that the self was enough, or should be, should
serve when food or clothing are in short supply,
and the rebellion, the movement, should carry
always on. Shortages
could not destroy him, losing control
of the people under his command
could not destroy him not
in a time when an order to desist
"on pain of death" meant quite simply
that, when Lords were tortured
to dying and governors and bishops impaled, he knew
he could only carry on. Capture, of course,
was eventually inevitable but the way in which
his men were starved for a week before his execution
was original. It was creative, even
honorific, the way in which he was killed
by executioners cooking bits of him, alive,
and feeding him to his hungry men, a sort
of praise, allowing him one last time
to fill, to nourish, to inspire.

((This is partially from the death list, partially from a prompt by Rachel McKibbens and partly who knows what))

10/30 in which the poet slacks off

Today was okay i guess because
i drank wine last night so i slept in
real late and i woke up a little woozy but
it was okay because it's sunday so
i didn't have to do anything, just
pee, which i did, and eat, which i did,
because Nancy came over with scallops and I
had rice so with our powers combined
we had a nice little meal while watching
a movie which helped the fact that my
mother wrote me today, the one who gave
birth to me not the one I love now, and she
was up to her same old tricks, of course,
like she could look the grand canyon right
in the eyes and make it feel guilty
for being so big, like she could stand out
in a monsoon and insist she were dry
as a bone, don't you dare tell her otherwise,
and no, at the end of today I didn't write
the poem I'd have liked to but fuck,
even G-d took a day off from creating,
so sue me, and anyway, the weather
was great.