Hello poets & lovers of poetry! The penultimate day of our April 2024 poem-a-day challenge has arrived! For this day 29, the prompt asked us as to use as inspiration one of the ten most-used words of singer-songwriter Taylor Swift (really!) in her song lyrics. Her new album Tortured Poets Department hopefully doesn’t represent how we poets feel on Day 29 of the challenge, but we could use some of her publicity!
See the complete prompt from Maureen Thorson’s Napowrimo.net below the poem for more details. I must confess that my use of swift, swiftness, and swiftly was strictly coincidental! After all, I was writing about Mercury!
I envy you your swiftness
If only I were more like you, Mercury.
If only I were more mercurial—in the good sense,
quick-witted, sprightly, clever & ingenious.
Not temperamental, fickle or inconstant,
but swift with missives from the gods!
You wear sandals & a cap with wings
to propel you with a speed that others envy.
Like the planet that bears your name,
you travel lightning fast even escaping
Copernicus by traveling swiftly in the dark!
Not like a tree, rooted in earth,
not like a river running deep & slow,
not like me. I crawl like a caterpillar, a snail,
a turtle from the sea. My mood sets in like
an overcast day when clouds don’t lift
until the sun burns through near sunset.
Oh, Mercury, though you be the god of tricksters
and thievery, and though the slow and steady
win the race, I envy you your swiftness!
Jacquelyn Markham 4/29/2024
The Prompt:
From Napowrimo.net: “And now for our optional prompt. If you’ve been paying attention to pop-music news over the past couple of weeks, you may know that Taylor Swift has released a new double album titled “The Tortured Poets Department.” In recognition of this occasion, Merriam-Webster put together a list of ten words from Taylor Swift songs. We hope you don’t find this too torturous yourself, but we’d like to challenge you to select one these words, and write a poem that uses the word as its title.”
Jacquelyn Markham, poet & writer, author of Rainbow Warrior, Finishing Line Press (2023), Peering Into the Iris: An Ancestral Journey and China Baby, among other titles.
Poet Voice 