Tag: National Poetry Month

Day 19 Pandora’s Box

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Maureen Thorson at Napowrimo.net has really come up with a prompt to surprise! She writes: “This one comes to us from Moist Poetry Journal, which posted this prompt by K-Ming Chang a while back: What are you haunted by, or what haunts you? Write a poem responding to this question. Then change the word haunt to hunt.” I am going to give both versions.

Pandora’s Box of Promises

No ordinary missives,

these miniature works of art

expressions of undying love & desire,

india ink on parchment, sometimes goauche

or Windsor Newton watercolor.

Love gone underground, this pile of letters

stored in an ornate box haunt me,

haunt me not to read, but to burn

in huge flames of banishment

at the dark phase of the moon.

If not turned to ashes, this parlance

will become a legacy I don’t want

to leave behind. Every time

I open the credenza,

Pandora’s box haunts me!

Jacquelyn Markham 4/19/2024

Pandora’s Box of Promises

No ordinary missives,

these miniature works of art

expressions of undying love & desire,

india ink on parchment, sometimes goauche

or Windsor Newton watercolor.

Love gone underground, this pile of letters

stored in an ornate box hunt me,

hunt me not to read, but to burn

in huge flames of banishment

at the dark phase of the moon.

If not turned to ashes, this parlance

will become a legacy I don’t want

to leave behind. Every time

I open the credenza,

Pandora’s box hunts me!

Jacquelyn Markham (4/19/2024-revision with hunt)

Day 1 PAD 2024-plot poem

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Here we go, poets and poetry lovers! Day one of the poem-a-day challenge and National Poetry Month! So exciting! Read more about it here.

Prompt: Write, without consulting the book, a poem that recounts the plot, or some portion of the plot, of a novel that you like but haven’t read in a long time (compliments of NaPoWriMo)! My today’s effort below.

Ocean moon, photo by the poet

Edna & the Sea

When Edna left the shore &

plunged into the salty blue,

her body slid through breaking waves,

a silvery fish, sunlight flashing freedom.

When Edna left the shore behind

she lost everything—except herself.

When she left the shore, she found herself,

as solid as a whale, breathing air in bursts,

then diving deep, deep, deep into the azure sea.

When Edna returned to

her city home, everything she lost

was there—Victorian rooms, silver trays

with calling cards, tea sets, & callers at the door,

but where was she?

Edna felt the pull of the ocean,

slipped from the shallow talk & society,

she felt the waves wash her ankles,

a moment’s hesitation before the plunge,

like a fish freed from the hook,

frolicking in viridian sea, its escape barely seen.

Jacquelyn Markham 4/1/2024

This plot poem is inspired by Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.  If  you haven’t read the book, you are missing a classic novel that reveals so much about the lives of women in the 19th century. And frankly, even into the 20th (and maybe even today for some women), Chopin’s words can evoke a “tower moment.”

Tower Card from Rider Waite deck