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
April 10th:
In his poem, “Goodbye,” Geoffrey Brock describes grief in three short stanzas, the second of which is entirely made up of a rhetorical dialogue. Today, write your own meditation on grief. Try using Brock’s form as the “container” for your poem: a few short stanzas, with a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.
In his poem, “Goodbye,” Geoffrey Brock describes grief in three short stanzas, the second of which is entirely made up of a rhetorical dialogue. Today, write your own meditation on grief. Try using Brock’s form as the “container” for your poem: a few short stanzas, with a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.
Woof
Active Member
I hadn't thought of it like that, it makes sense! I find it really difficult to find my own poems in blocks of my own text so tend to struggle even more with other people's but it can be fun. I remember when I was working in a library we did napo together and that was one of the prompts then too (must have been about 6/7 years ago). We tore books out of damaged books and sat and coloured out the words to try and distill something new from them. Maybe something that aligned with the original text or something opposite. It never bore fruit for me but I liked the idea. Now, I had more success with rewriting famous poems as limericks one year
Yeah I found a lot of catchy words and phrases but don't know if I successfully created the meaning in the poem, it probably needs rewriting. The challenge reminded me of the scene in a Bob Dylan documentary where he was playing with words in an improvisational way.I hadn't thought of it like that, it makes sense! I find it really difficult to find my own poems in blocks of my own text so tend to struggle even more with other people's but it can be fun. I remember when I was working in a library we did napo together and that was one of the prompts then too (must have been about 6/7 years ago). We tore books out of damaged books and sat and coloured out the words to try and distill something new from them. Maybe something that aligned with the original text or something opposite. It never bore fruit for me but I liked the idea. Now, I had more success with rewriting famous poems as limericks one year
I'm late but will copy yesterday's prompt in too for completeness...
April 11th:
Erasure poetry — also known as blackout poetry — is written by taking an existing text and erasing or blacking out individual words. Here’s a great explainer with examples, and you’ll find another here. Some folks have written whole books of erasures/blackouts, including Chase Berggrun’s R E D (which is based on Dracula), Jen Bervin’s Nets (which is based on Shakespeare’s sonnets), and what is one of the grand-daddies of erasures as a form, Ronald Johnson’s Radi Os (which is based on Paradise Lost). Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own erasure/blackout poem. You could use a page from a favorite book, a magazine, what have you. It can be especially fun to play with a book you don’t know, particularly one that deals with an unfamiliar topic. If you’d like to go that route, maybe you’ll find something of interest in the thousands of scanned books at the Internet Archive? Feel free to maintain the whitespace of the original text (as is traditional for erasures/blackouts . . . if anything can be called traditional about them) or to pluck words/phrases from your chosen source material and rearrange them.
April 12th:
Amarjit Chandan has a pretty wild biography, but his poetry is often focused on place and memory – with his hometown of Nakodar appearing repeatedly. His poem “Uncle Mohan Singh” recounts, with a sort of dreaminess, a memory of the titular uncle playing the accompaniment to a silent film. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.
April 11th:
Erasure poetry — also known as blackout poetry — is written by taking an existing text and erasing or blacking out individual words. Here’s a great explainer with examples, and you’ll find another here. Some folks have written whole books of erasures/blackouts, including Chase Berggrun’s R E D (which is based on Dracula), Jen Bervin’s Nets (which is based on Shakespeare’s sonnets), and what is one of the grand-daddies of erasures as a form, Ronald Johnson’s Radi Os (which is based on Paradise Lost). Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own erasure/blackout poem. You could use a page from a favorite book, a magazine, what have you. It can be especially fun to play with a book you don’t know, particularly one that deals with an unfamiliar topic. If you’d like to go that route, maybe you’ll find something of interest in the thousands of scanned books at the Internet Archive? Feel free to maintain the whitespace of the original text (as is traditional for erasures/blackouts . . . if anything can be called traditional about them) or to pluck words/phrases from your chosen source material and rearrange them.
April 12th:
Amarjit Chandan has a pretty wild biography, but his poetry is often focused on place and memory – with his hometown of Nakodar appearing repeatedly. His poem “Uncle Mohan Singh” recounts, with a sort of dreaminess, a memory of the titular uncle playing the accompaniment to a silent film. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.
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I love blackout poetry! I heard about it first from Austin Kleon. Going to have to do one retroactively.
That sounds really fun.
I just did two attempts: one with a digital version and blackout bars, which somehow didn't work at all. Then with a photocopied version and a pen. The action of permanently removing text makes for a very different experience.
Woof
Active Member
Yes, it's very different isn't it! With a pen and paper there's a finality to it that you just have to make your decisions and work with them regardless which can be really surprising, and also just the act of blacking out/erasure with a good pen is very satisfying. I had a go digitally for this prompt and became indecisive, changing which words I chose constantly and got nowhere fast. It's good to make creativity tactile sometimes.
April 13th:
To get started with today’s prompt, first read Walter de la Mare’s poem “A Song of Enchantment.” Then, John Berryman’s poem “Footing Our Cabin’s Lawn, Before the Wood.” Both poems work very differently, yet leave you with a sense of the near-fantastical possibilities of the landscapes they describe. Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.
To get started with today’s prompt, first read Walter de la Mare’s poem “A Song of Enchantment.” Then, John Berryman’s poem “Footing Our Cabin’s Lawn, Before the Wood.” Both poems work very differently, yet leave you with a sense of the near-fantastical possibilities of the landscapes they describe. Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.
Socks Fox
Member
This is basic functional context. People do this unconsciously. Can you make it specific, definitely, but reasonably speaking it is saying write a poem about a memory. As Gilbert said of Anne's early attempts at writing 'look at that chap Percival who sits around mooning all day'. Stylistically speaking making the mundane seem atypical is what the essence of poetry is, but when it comes down to it, it still has to function. People can and do struggle with the abstract or inclusion of the atypical and a decent piece can end up having a sour not because of an out of tune element. Consistency of the element within the piece. Both examples are subtle almost conversational, not unlike Frost.
OR
Shingle Shore
A fresh sour apple sky
at the shingle shore
eternity in the curve
of the abalone shell
Journeys of place
and forsaken time
unuttered, written
in the oysters' verse
And in a pool of glass
a seascape suspended
there billowed a cape
an empty skin...lost
A ripple of silver fur
that seemed to reach
for the restless waves
as they surged, sighed
sand and glass and pearl
Woof
Active Member
Feeling a little drafty-self-consciousness today. Like a word shuffler, not a poet. Maybe it's trying to hard to do the prompts but I never quite feel like I have my voice as a poet yet, even after decades of dabbling. Prose, yes, I know what I sound like. Poetry is more elusive. That's why I like doing the prompts. For 30 days I'm just sampling a bunch of ice-cream flavours to see which one's my favourite and then maybe I can think about making sundaes later. It is helpful to read my things posted too, to view them at a little more distance from my own files at this early composition stage. Kind of shortcuts the old advice to shove it in a drawer for a week or two and then take it out and look at it with fresh eyes. Still loving sharing this process too 
audreyhowitt
Member
I think it is all a process--I feel like I am posting drafts in NaPo all the time--and I think that is fine--a good friend once told me that the poem will let me know when it is done--Have fun--write--read--and allow all the room you want for the poem to emerge as it is right now--Feeling a little drafty-self-consciousness today. Like a word shuffler, not a poet. Maybe it's trying to hard to do the prompts but I never quite feel like I have my voice as a poet yet, even after decades of dabbling. Prose, yes, I know what I sound like. Poetry is more elusive. That's why I like doing the prompts. For 30 days I'm just sampling a bunch of ice-cream flavours to see which one's my favourite and then maybe I can think about making sundaes later. It is helpful to read my things posted too, to view them at a little more distance from my own files at this early composition stage. Kind of shortcuts the old advice to shove it in a drawer for a week or two and then take it out and look at it with fresh eyes. Still loving sharing this process too
