2025 Yahtzee Roll #4: Fill #3

Title: Christmastime
Fandom: Original
No. of Lines: 8
Poetic form: Ottava rima
Rating: Gen
Prompt:
Summary: An ottava rima about a couple at a Christmas market.

your big black umbrella opens, but we’re
too happy, too in love, it’s Christmastime
bright strings of lights and mugs of warm, spiced cheer,
and fat lazy flakes falling, Christmastime
of baking, taking too much time, it’s here,
it’s really here, we cry, it’s Christmastime
we’re crowding the stalls and fir tree market
just to take it in, to laugh and hark it

Poet's Corner: The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón

The Hurting Kind is a collection of poetry by the US Poet Laureate Ada Limón. I enjoyed it. I listened to an audiobook of her reading it and I recommend that. Her voice adds a lot. A bit like Mary Oliver but not as focused on nature as Mary Oliver (but there is a lot of nature, animals, bird, plants, flowers, etc.).

So I am going to post one of my favorites and link to the others.

The Magnificent Frigatebird by Ada Limon

Is it okay to begin with the obvious? I am full of stones—
is it okay not to look out this window, but to look out another?

A mentor once said, You can't start a poem with a man looking
out a window. Too many men looking out a window.

What about a woman? Today is a haunting. One last orange
on the counter: it is a dead fruit. We swallow dead things.
( Read more... )

3 Weeks 4 Dreamwidth (2025): Day 2

3weeks4dreamwidth is celebrating Dreamwidth's anniversary!
Come join in for fun, memes, activities, and more ♥

Day 2/ 26 APR prompt: unconventional vocabulary

What I mean by this is words that either you (or your family or your local environment or your particular background) use that aren't dictionary words.

For example, I had an aunt who said 'tidy-bowl' instead of 'tidy' or 'clean' or 'put in order,' as in 'I have to tidy-bowl the guest bedroom room before Friday.' In my house, we call those little fruit gummies (like Welsh's) beo-beo because that's what the boys called them when they were little.

Feel free to drop your own example in the comments.

I am reminded of this by a poem by Ada Limón, "The Hurting Kind" in part 3:

Sticky packs of photographs
heteromaniacal postcards

I googled 'heteromaniacal' but I think she made it up to express the oppressive need of media/popular culture to couple people in romantic relationships. And I think it's a great word. I get so frustrated sometimes when a romantic subplot is Very Artifically stuck into something and that word expresses the drive to do that.

Day 2/ 26 APR What's the story behind why you replaced the last phone you had?

My phone was so old the company said they were going to cut me off if I didn't upgrade. Yes. :/

( Full list of questions )

2025 Yahtzee Roll #4: Fill #4

Title: City in the rain
Fandom: Original
No. of Lines: 8
Prompt:
Summary: a poem about a city and the reflections produced in puddles during a storm.

City is a thing with many feet,
hurrying,
under neon gods, worshiping with neat
scurrying.
Rain-polished stones reflect
that other place
like city, but blurred, where none expect
a frantic pace

2025 Yahtzee Roll #4: Fill #5

Title: This is a boy cleaning a pot
Fandom: Original
Rating: Gen
No. of lines: 8
Poetic form: samsong (short, variation on)
Prompt:
Summary: a samsong about a boy drawing

This is a boy cleaning a pot
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat, who doesn’t want to be caught
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat, who doesn’t want to caught doing what he should not
This is a boy cleaning a pot, crouched in a squat, who doesn’t want to be caught sketching with a cinder clot
This is a boy not cleaning a pot, but still crouched in a squat, illustrating a plot
This is a boy not cleaning a pot, admiring what hand and eye and ash have wrought
This is a boy, caught, and, still in a squat, once more, cleaning a pot