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Today's prompt was to pair two unlikely things--a speaker and an event.

The pollen is killing me, so I wrote a limerick about a bee who is allergic to pollen.

The Bee Who Hated Pollen

There once was a pollen-hating bee
Every flower he touched made him sneeze,
Pollen stuck to him like glue,
So, what's a bee to do,
When he's allergic to the trees?

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 23, 2010

I just spent the last 13 hours on a bus with a bunch of ten-year-olds on a field trip. I'm a bit worn out, so I hope this poem makes sense.

Today's prompt was to write about imperfections.

Vision of Imperfection

Sprawled out on the dentist's chair
every imperfection
highlighted
in fluorescent--
snow-capped zits,
bottle-cap glasses.

The dentist finished off the ugly painting
by adding
a mouthful of silver.

Me--
at my ugliest.

Two dental hygenists
with smooth brown skin
free of flaws
rubbed my arms
claiming I was
an American beauty.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 21, 2010

Today's poem was about heroes. I give you an ode to my parents (heroes for many more reasons than just this one):

Ode to Book-Loving Parents

O, Mom and Dad,
you filled our house
with books,
encouraged the giggling
when Fudge finally turned Ben
into a story-lover,
stuffed mailbags
full of books,
paid exorbitant postage
so our new Thai home
would hold our favorite stories,
took extra time shopping
so I could speed-read
the latest Sweet Valley High
curled up in the store corner,
brought me every book you could find
when I was sick for a month--
forbidden to move
except to turn the page
of a book.
For all of these stories,
you are heroes.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 20, 2010

Today's prompt was to write about a lightbulb moment--good or bad. I wrote about a chinchoke, a type of lizard that lives in houses in Thailands.

Here's my attempt:

Chinchoke

He scurried,
scaling walls,
dipping behind curtains,
wrangling mosquitoes.

I wanted to catch him.

I jumped high,
smacking walls,
flittering curtains,
poking sticks.

Then once
his lizard instincts
experienced a delay.
I held him in place,
finger on his tail.

He escaped--

leaving me,
with his tail
and guilt.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 19, 2010

I love to write poetry. I am not particularly skilled at it, but I like to write it. I have been writing poetry since middle school. Seventh grade to be exact. I had to write a poem, so I wrote one about a cat and Mrs. Griep gave me an A+, and she even wrote positive comments on it. The last day of school, she gave me a thesaurus and wrote a note on the inside. She said something along the lines of: I can't wait to get a signed copy of your first book.

Wow! What a vote of confidence. I have never forgotten that little bit of encouragement. I don't have a published book yet, but I am working very hard toward that goal.

The poetry? Well, it's just fun. I don't have formal poetry training. But I love writing it anyway.

In February, I did the picture book marathon. I rose to the challenge and completed the marathon. But I didn't have to post my writings online. Thank goodness. Some of them are not fit for anyone's eyes. I have been working my way through some of the manuscripts with potential, one-by-one, to get them into better shape.

For this NaPoWriMo challenge, however, I have been posting my poetry online daily. I have about an hour to write. Not much time to eek out a good poem. I have been posting them though because I can't stand not  meeting a goal I set for myself. I have been drafting and posting. Each poem goes through 2-3 passes, at best. It feels sort of like letting someone read your diary. Some of the poems I've posted need LOTS of work. I may rewrite them many, many more times before they would every see a real published page. I was feeling sort of strange about the whole thing--sending out my poem "drafts" for the whole world to see.

Then I read this article about poetry by Janet Wong in Hunger Mountain. She is truly one of my favorite poets of all time. I relate so well to her poetry because she has written about living between cultures so honestly. I have written a lot of my poetry about being an American kid living overseas and feeling like I was also between cultures.

Her article discussed how she wrote after her child went to bed at night (ditto) and felt like she couldn't produce anything worthwhile (ditto), but she sat at that computer every night (ditto) and did the best she could to draft some poems.

She talks about how much she has written compared to how much was actually published, but the poems that weren't published were still valuable because they were PRACTICE. They made her better.

So cheers! To practice! Thank you Janet Wong.

Today's challenge required a little bit of reading and research, but it was well worth it. I am working out of town, so I didn't have as much time as I had hoped. The prompt was to write a cleave poem. It's a unique 3-in-1 poem. Read the bold-faced lines on the left as their own poem. Then read the regular print words as one poem. Then read the whole line as one poem. I find it fascinating. For more about cleave poems, check out this page.


I want to love this place, I hate it here
inhaling the smells I don't recognize
triggering fond memories the lure of place
listen to the language, babble I can't comprehend
understand with my soul why my mother loves
call this city home again

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 14, 2010

Okay cleave, I'll be back again.

Today's prompt was to borrow a first line of a poem by Norman Dubie and create your own poem from it.

The first line I picked was: "Worlds are being told like beads."

Here's my attempt:

Memorized

Worlds are being told like beads,
each one
with its own story,
its distilled backstory.
She rubs each bead,
a comfortable smoothness
like a familiar memory.
She counts every bead,
over and over
trying to remember
which one is missing,
rediscovering the pain
ripping off
a scab.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 13, 2010

Today's prompt: write in secret code. In other words, think of a message and give it to something unusual.

Here's my attempt:

Hope Floats



Clouds act out,
charading—
not movies,
or book titles,
but puffed up
with sage snippets,
corralling birds
into formation.
Together
they paint
the sky
with hope.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 12, 2010

Today's prompt was to write about the thing you didn't chose and write directly to it.

Here's my attempt:

What Might've Been

Your winds

might have carried me off
whipping off Lake Michigan
chilling me
to my tropical
bones.
Old friends
might have warmed me
like a cup of lemon tea,
but the sour taste
of being far from
home
would linger
reminding me
that this big city
isn’t mine.
Skyscrapers
pushed to the sky
can’t substitute
for the mountains
that I would have missed
if I had made
a different choice.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 11, 2010

Today's prompt was to write about a celebration recently. I experimented with an ABeCedarian form because it seemed fitting for the subject matter.

Easter Egg Hunt

April
Baskets
Carried
Dyed
Eggs
Finding
Grabby
Hands
Instantly,
Jostling
Kneeling
Little
Monsters
Nestled
On
Pillows
Quilted
'Round
Spring
Tulips
Until
Very
Weary
eXtraordinary
Yolk-finders
Zonked out.

by Marcie Flinchum Atkins
April 10, 2010

up and down the street ornamental pear trees in bloom over hopscotch game ...-Andromeda Jazmon We were talking in the faculty room about how early the trees have jumped into bloom. Each person had a story about a street in their neighborhood that is lined with ornamental pears. One day they were sleepy brown sticks; the next day - whoosh! - a cloud of fragrant blossoms. I had a vision of 

Today's prompt was to write about unusual love connections. I don't think I've written a love poem since I was a teenager, and here I've written two in one week. These prompts are definitely making me stretch.

Here's today's attempt:

Yesterday after school. I had a free half hour to just sit on the porch swing and daydream before I started dinner. What a treat! I had a bowl of strawberry sorbet that had been stashed in the freezer by my thoughtful, darling oldest boy as a birthday present, and listened to bird song and church bells. Cherry blossom petals were dancing in the breeze. strawberry sorbet and evening church

on the porch swing watching kids on scooters; silent green unfurls ...-Andromeda Jazmon On these long, warm spring evenings we finish dinner and go outside for another half hour of playtime. The kids have pulled out scooters and bikes and baseballs, and have the run of the front lawns. I'm in my porch swing, taking it all in. These precious few days when the world is flowing with sap and

Today's prompt is to "converse with images". Use an image and see what kind of poem it leads to. I checked in my "haiku pictures" folder on my computer and wrote a haiku for a picture I haven't written about before.