audreyhowitt
Member
@riddleywalker your imagery in #8 is just gorgeous!
NaPoWriMo 2026 Discussion Thread
- Thread starter Homer Potvin
- Start date
April 9th:
Marianne Moore was a well-known modernist poet, with a curious taste in hats. Though she wrote on many themes, I’ve always had some affection for her many poems about – or in the voice of – animals, such as “The Fish,” “Dock Rats,” “The Pangolin,” and “No Swan so Fine.” Today, try writing your own poem in the voice of an animal or plant, or a poem that describes a specific animal or plant with references to historical events or scientific facts.
Marianne Moore was a well-known modernist poet, with a curious taste in hats. Though she wrote on many themes, I’ve always had some affection for her many poems about – or in the voice of – animals, such as “The Fish,” “Dock Rats,” “The Pangolin,” and “No Swan so Fine.” Today, try writing your own poem in the voice of an animal or plant, or a poem that describes a specific animal or plant with references to historical events or scientific facts.
Woof
Active Member
To the prompt not the poem as much but I can see how it could seem like that if I'm understanding it better now. I have to say, it was a bit dense for me and I struggled to grasp at quite what they were saying but I think, on reexamination, it was meant to say 'they call me poet but I reject the name, I am only these things'? Where as mine is saying 'they don't call me writer but I say I am because of these things': one rejecting their given label, another trying to claim it?
I hadn't thought about it too much, just responded to the prompt with one of the non-life-threatening things in my life that prickles me enough to push back against it. I had hypercritical, at best, and abusive family growing up who filled my mind full of negative things and destructive self-image, taking charge of what I could and couldn't, should and shouldn't be and the only one I've ever managed to successfully regain control of for myself is my identity as a writer. It is because I spent so much time in the company of other writers I think -- in person and online -- who would not let me off the hook and pushed me to embrace that part of me.
Aside from my own personal experience it's such a weird identity to question though. Non-writers particularly seem so intent on defining writers in a way that insults the notion of being an amateur (in the truest, original sense) and in a way that would be ridiculous in any other pursuit. Like tennis: If someone asked me what I do for pleasure and I said I play tennis, no one would question whether I was a tennis player or not, only maybe if I was professional. It perplexes me now.... a long with so many other things
