National Poetry Month kicks off today and that means it’s time for the Writer’s Digest 2022 April PAD Challenge. (PAD is short for Poem-A-Day.) Robert Brewer posts a daily prompt and poets poem. It’s that simple. Or that difficult. Depending on the day and the prompt.
Here we go.
Day 1. “For today’s prompt, pick a word that begins with F, make it the title of your poem, and then, write your poem.”
I wrote a type of Fibonacci but the spacing isn’t accurate on this graphic.
I admit it. I was stumped for last week’s prompt from Poetic Asides. We were suppose to write a poem with this title:
“I’ll believe it when . . . ”
Everything I thought of was incredibly boring or simply dumb. Just like that last sentence. There are imaginings that are brilliant and there are those that belong in the trash. I blame it all on my toothache. So, five days and one dentist appointment later, here it is:
“I’ll believe it when I hear . . . ”
your footprints recede
in the sand;
when your final steps fade
like evening,
then I’ll believe
you have finally heard me,
then I’ll believe that letting go
has become your new passion
of control;
and only then will I be free
to bask in my solitude
without fear.
From time to time, Poetic Asides offers a form challenge. I am not anti-form. Most of the time, writing within the confines of form forces you tighten your writing and focus and then you end up with a thought or visual you never expected. That’s the fun part of form writing. The not so fun part is trying to fit the words within a tight space.
Our challenge this time was to write a Tritina. “The tritina is composed of 3 tercets and a final line that stands alone. Like the sestina, it uses a set of alternating end words–in this case three.” The pattern is ABC, CAB, BCA. The final line uses all three repeating words in any order. Here’s mine:
“Hanging onto Love”
She still hangs on to love
like water, a deep-sea green ache,
within a boundless deep need for a life
to share, freedom within an eroding life
where her grief has collided with love
now released as desert tears and ache
inside her porous heart—a dry ache
to which she gave her life,
blind and mute to pure love—
an ache for life held inside love.
Writing On The Sun 