So you wrote a lot of poems…

Maybe it was crazy to attempt 100 daily poems.

I had thought to wait another day or two for the Poem Post-Mortem (which sounds pretty cool if you say it aloud). I had a lot of reactions in the final ten days or so, and I see no reason to wait. In no particular sequence, here are some reactions of this author…

  • It actually got easier in a way when I got into it. In reviewing at random over the course of the writing (July 7 to October 8), I noticed that somewhere around one-third of the way in, between poem 31 and 35, the subjects seemed to suggest themselves more easily. They acted like shy faerie folk who don’t know what to make of the giant human at first. Were there any ‘good’ poems in the first 33? I guess. I’m much more pleased with the ones over the final third.
  • I became more surprised at what words showed up. In particular, Daymare (Oct 1) popped in from who-knows-where. All I did was think, “I’d like to write something more ‘image-ry’ like the ones Bridgette does.” Fine, mission accomplished, but from where did the image come?
  • I surprised myself also by sticking with it. My general attitude toward life has been, “when the going gets tough, get going,” in the sense of go work somewhere else, go do something else. “Life’s too short to keep [insert what I don’t want to do].” Yet I cracked the ends of both radii in my arms only two weeks in and kept right on writing. I traveled for two weeks yet wrote poems #35 through #49. I contracted the flu Type A on September 24 and kept right on writing. I must credit Bridgette with that, mostly, because she kept writing through her time sucks and bodily aches.
  • More people are interested in reading my poems than my prose. My blog readership increased about 100%, and my followers rose about 10%-20%.
  • In the beginning I mined poems written long ago when I railed inside at the perceived shortcomings of the people running my places of employment. (I still think I was partially right, but over the two to three decades I accumulated those poems, I learned two things: there are more paths to the goal than you think; and oftentimes the goal you think you’re working toward is not the goal your management is working toward.) Those poems in my opinion remained stilted, as if I tried to breathe life into a corpse but only succeeded in creating a zombie.
  • I have a peculiar knack to take a popular tune from my younger days and spontaneously craft new words for it on the fly. I sing these to my wife who rarely is amused by it. I’m rather proud of the fact I can create rhymes and mimic the meter of the original tune, but then I’m a borderline narcissist. This talent(?) helped in writing poems, particularly when I decided to rhyme them.
  • When I lowered my expectations my poems rose in quality.
  • I have a strong urge to publish a poem today! Resisting.

I thought as I got into this a little bit that it might be fun to rework the better poems and churn out a chapbook. I still might, but I’m thinking more that I will be working some poems on the side for submission to poetry websites. There are plenty. A new blog I follow, zumpoems, has this list of more than 4000 places which will accept submissions.

About the photo: I’ve carried that book around for about 30 years (published 1996), even though by then I had given up on my dream of actually earning a living from my creative writing. I never liked it that much. Pulling it from the to-be-donated pile, I thumbed through it today and I’m much more inspired by its suggestions and insights. Like so many things in my life, poetry came to me when I quit trying to be a poet.

And the poets down here don’t write nothing at all,
they just stand back and let it all be…

—from “Jungleland” by Bruce Springsteen

A century of poems

On July 7th I caught up to the fact that writing friend Bridgette had embarked on one of her #100 jaunts, this time with poetry. I decided to join and wrote a couple a day until I caught up. (Somewhere along the line my poem number equaled the date in July.) It became both easier and more difficult. I think I’ll do a full download in a day or two, but today, the knowledge that the finish line has been crossed is exhilarating. I feel pretty good about it, and as I’m just regaining my energy after a lengthy battle with the flu, it’s good timing. 

Here's to a century of poems!
To the angelic Muse who inspired
where human thought faltered.
To pain examined, to sorrow freed,
to joy remarked and justly praised.

Here's to blather, whimsey, musicality,
studious lexical construction, 
obstinacy, dread. To sheer, stubborn
perseverance. To posturing, to
pretense, to ego filled and deflated.

Here's to subjects barely scratched
and to those wrung dry. To daily
forays into unknown spaces, led
on by Trust, by Belief, by extra-
ordinary Chutzpah, by Faith.

Here's to allowing oneself to learn
by doing or perhaps by not-doing—
by re-examining the Done and
separating it from the Not Done
(the fantasy following us forever).

Here's to Attitude! To Meekness,
to Gracious Acceptance when
your best garners nothing, but
your mediocrity reaps praise
beyond your understanding.

Here's to not understanding
your own poem yet thinking
you can critique someone else's.
To mighty draughts of Ego 
sipped daily at a keyboard altar.

As with any history, this one
lumbers past its usefulness.
One hundred created anythings 
seems remarkable enough. Why
bother rehashing the hashed?

(because it feels so damn good!)

100/100
Oh! 100 poems in 100 days!

Penultimacy redux

Tomorrow marks the 100th poem, the end of a poetic journey which seemed much longer back in July. Thus, today is the penultimate day, and I just can’t get over what to me is a ridiculously pompous word.

Is this the penultimate day? Will green sprout imminently? Or is this the penultimate day to the penultimate day, or is it…oh, heck, we’re all penultimate in some way. Washington State, August 1994.
Once again we trot you out,
presager of triumph, crier for
others, never cried for. Sound
your trumpet! Herald 'The End'!
Tomorrow we shall rejoice,
we shall party, we shall bask
in the well-turned, diligent
task. Today, though, we need
someone to set up the tables,
the chairs. Thanks again—
your check's on the counter.
I wrote this on the penultimate
day of your penultimacy.
Couldn't be bothered to
mark the unremarkable.

99/100
100 poems in 100 days…the end is near.

blue

What could be blue in this small box? (Note blue pencil.) December 1971.
Today I'll wear blue to honor my father:
jeans, a perfectly medium blue shirt,
blue socks—and unlike him, I'll even
thread a blue belt around my waist
and my sneakers shall be blue. He
would not approve or understand
belts, shoes which weren't leather.
Such a cheery man! Why fixate on
blue, the color of sadness, brooding,
moping, the heart's coldness? Yet,
he painted his room blue too. When I
wanted to know him better, I would
open his closet, walk my fingers through
his clothes: blue, blue, blue, blue.
I remember when quite small his
'modern' patterned shirt, pink bars
set on black. Where did that man go?
Back then did he hide his blue heart?

98/100
100 poems in 100 days

Dawn, October Fifth

I took myself outside to seek a dawn which did not come.

Tulip poplar. October 2026.
Cool, cooler than most mornings we've 
had for the past five or more months.
Dawn's only evidence: white sky where
once night's charcoal glowed with city lights.
Occasional cool breezes stir the tulip poplar
leaves, make the yellow ones dance excitedly.
Acorns have started their rat-a-tat assault
on neighborhood roofs. Only ours seems
spared, which also seems impossible.
Cawing crows on the move signal some
kind of discontent. Who knows with crows?
Murky morning light half-reveals visitors
to bird feeders full once again with seed:
cardinals claim high perches; nuthatches
perform hit-and-run, exuberant, vocal.
Gray squirrels blend into the bland, 
starting their day-long search for dropped
seeds and other treasures. In front, cars
swish by more frequently with each minute.
Dawn marks morning's commute these days.

Now Wren takes up his daily post on our
stairway, trilling his claims to the morning,
or perhaps just boasting. His simple song
gets answered by another wren who voices
"Where'dja eat? Where'dja eat? Where'dja eat?"
Scree-ing discontent or merely hunting, a
red-shouldered hawk cries from the top
of the tree canopy, scattering cardinals,
but not anyone else. A third wren joins his
friends with a shrill version of the cardinals'
soft sibilance, and rail-wren answers. 
Overhead, one of man's attempts to
emulate birds whines, sounding as if
it will imminently be crashing. 

Do you remember when you woke as 
a child and the day held nothing but
possibilities? When all that mattered
was Now? When so little Past sat on
your shoulders, you couldn't feel it?
Hairy woodpecker at suet feeder. October 2026.

97/100
100 poems in 100 days

Procreation

I’m flat running on poetic fumes. Numbers 99 and 100 have outlines, but we’re not there yet. This is one of three in the countdown to the countdown. I’m not being aided by what seems to be a slight relapse toward the sick end of the spectrum.

This is what happens when you have children. My brother, circa 1989 when his children were aged approximately 7 and 4.
Never having children,
I decided not to grow up.
Perhaps, rather, these two
thoughts intertwined,
reinforcing the other. 
Prospective parenthood
seemed to demand more
maturity than I cared to
exhibit on a continual 
basis. And toys! Surely
I deserved toys as much,
no, more than some lucky
random assignation of
my genes? 

Truly this screams of
revisionist history. 
My arrival at the
Maturity Party came
late. I could not more
think of children while
teaching 150 of 'em
each day than I could
see how my chances to
sire some dwindled each
year I drifted away from
my partner. One last gasp,
one chance to Be The Dad,
dashed when my new wife
vanquished cancer but
destroyed motherhood in
the process. Just as well.
Advanced Childhood has
served me as well as
Stumbling Adulthood 
seems to have served others.

96/100
100 poems in 100 days

Poetry Workshop

Is it getting to be a bit much, what with flu recovery and all? Maybe…maybe a little bit.

Your poetry shelves will be as bare as the pasta section of your grocery store during the pandemic! Huzzah! April 2020.
Welcome to the Century Poetry Workshop
where getting it right never precludes
getting it done. While you're here you'll
experience the ups, downs of any lesser
program, but here you'll get to do so,
again, and again, and again, and...
again. Our founder realized the old
adage, "If at first you don't succeed..."
carried within it the implication 
that succeeding meant you could stop. 
Reasoning this didn't reflect real life, 
he instilled in us the belief that 
getting it right deserves a pat on 
your back and a well-deserved
feeling of accomplishment which
should last until tomorrow, when it
vanishes, just like it does for any 
baseball player who experiences
a victory in a late July game. And 
don't worry about "How will I
ever keep this up?" We've got you!
Our patented Stage of Global
Failure will make sure billions
have access to your daily task
to produce yet another poem.
Please note your publishing
platform has parameters in
place to reject one and two-lined
poems and frivolous limericks,
haiku, clerihews, and the like.
We're not making THAT mistake
again. (Also, shame parameters
have been increased for putting
such drivel online.) When you
'graduate' this program, a
century of verse under your
literary belt, you'll know you've
accomplished something! Will
you be able to call it literature?
That's up to you—we highly
recommend it, because how else
will you justify those daily doses of
depression to 'write just one more?'
Remember, as with any task like
mopping your kitchen floor, you
only get out of it what you put in!
So keep up the good work, avoid
those haunted eyes of the near-
graduates, and go write a poem!

95/100
100 poems in 100 days
(I can smell the finish line…)

Shells

Despite getting over this flu’s fever—and managing to stay awake all day!—crazy periods of dizziness keep washing over me like waves. This makes discovering yet another poem almost more problematic than letting a raging fever power Creation’s bark toward shore.

The Final Week of this 100-poem marathon would seem to demand a kick, but marathoners know kicks can’t usually be summoned after all that. Gutting it to the line and over remains a worthy goal. Perhaps a joyous sprint of several paces? It will have to do.

Ocean Isle Beach. November 2007.
every beach day I turned over
rocks, peered into tidal pools,
walked wet sands while my head
defined my body's right angle.
shells, creatures, treasure—call them
by their true name: hopes. I planned
no plans, no marine aquarium, no
extensively labeled collection.
"to espy" my only goal, one not easily
satisfied. three score, more, yet still
my mind scours its sands searching
for treasures. when one's former
brilliance dims, when nothing 
can be espied, nothing plucked
even momentarily, no triumph
exclaimed—this little death brings
disproportionate chill. Would 
to have not known this stage
when audiences depart quietly,
embarrassed for the actor who
cannot seem to remember his lines.

94/100
100 poems in 100 days

Daymare

Does one wonder in hidden moonlight, drowned
by noonday sun, if lunacy seeps even now into
cracks, pores, follicles, corners of eyes? Surely
this maelstromic soup, part mother, part father,
part those who piled invectives during years 
best forgotten, cannot have coalesced entirely
without simmering by some stronger force?

93/100
100 poems in 100 days
[how weird! WordPress refused to add the tag “nurture”…and only that one…]