thinking about poetry everyday
For Day 30 PAD 2025, the final day of poem-a-day challenge, Maureen challenge us to “write a poem that also describes different times in which we have heard the same band or piece of music across our lifetimes.” (NaPoWriMo.net)
It was a difficult poem to write for many reasons, but here it is, a poem dedicated to my mother whose birthday is tomorrow.
Today’s challenge was “to write a poem that involves music at a ceremony or event of some kind.” Click (NaPoWriMo) for all the details about the Day 28 prompt. Only two more days of the poem-a-day challenge and National Poetry Month!
And here’s my offering for the Day 28 challenge about music at a ceremony. In this case, my own experiences playing music for weddings!
Music for Weddings in the Wild
These lovers with their visions!
They dream up weddings on the beach,
weddings in the meadow,
weddings on the river—but
mother nature is filled with surprises!
The pastor inhaled a gnat & she choked
on the vows one May evening on the shore
at sundown. Repellent saturated netting
draped the brim of my straw hat. Still,
I resisted inhaling deeply before
a long passage though Mendelsohn had imagined it
played with fluidity, though my notation
on the music said “breathe!”
Guests from Wisconsin swatted, squirmed, &
prayed for a breeze from the shore,
but none forthcoming as the Atlantic
lapped the sand like water on the edge of a
docile pond. Another dream wedding
of a different surprise. Guest chairs
faced west on a hot afternoon
in a grassy field. All held back
from folding chairs in a row that
beckoned to them but the flutist! I played
to the hot orange sinking sun—hoping
the piper piping would bring them
to their seats, and it would be time
for champagne!
Jacquelyn Markham © 2025 (Day 28)
Day 24 PAD 2025 NapoWriMo’s prompt for today brought to mind a rather dissonant duet from days past. I think you will see what I mean.
And the challenge is to write a poem that involves people making music together, and that references – with a lyric or line – a song or poem that is important to you.
Here’s my April 24 offering amidst a busy, busy National Poetry Month!
I’m forever blowing bubbles,
blowing bubbles in the air.
My mother loved the song & I love
to tootle the tune on my flute!
“They fly so high, nearly reach the sky!”
And you never tire of Thelonious Monk’s
dissonant chords on your Rhodes &
disdain my bubbles. Swear my flute plays
“Round Midnight” best.
I remember those days with
“Pretty bubbles in the air!” –
flew so high—nearly reached the sky!
but it really gets bad ‘round midnight—
Dissonance—notes/chords clash/create
tension & my bubbles burst in the air,
showering this duo in iridescent tears
‘til old midnight comes around.
& we are feelin’ sad. Maybe another duet?
There’s always Satie!
Jacquelyn Markham ©2025 (Day 24)
The prompt from NapoWriMo for Day 22 took me back to a time when I learned to play the flute.
Having come from a rural one-room schoolhouse with few resources and moving to a small town highschool as a 7th grader, I arrived without any musical background. The kids at the “city” school started music in 5th grade, so my band director (if only I remembered his name) was kind enough to try to bring me up to speed along with another student who learned the French Horn! That band director surely has received his reward in heaven!
In any case, below is the prompt and my poem for Day 22 of the poem-a-day challenge, “Joy for What I Learned.”
Also, I highly recommend you read Diane Wakoski’s poem that is embedded within the prompt, too. It is lovely!
Prompt: “In her poem, Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons, Diane Wakoski is far more grateful than I ever managed to be, describing the act of playing as a “relief” from loneliness and worry, and as enlarging her life with something beautiful. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something you’ve done – whether it’s music lessons, or playing soccer, crocheting, or fishing, or learning how to change a tire – that gave you a similar kind of satisfaction, and perhaps still does.”
In gratitude for having learned to play the notes on this silver
miracle, a tube with keys & springs & holes—a flute.
My notes carry on the wind, reach the wren & chickadee who join
in when I play my tunes. Pastoral silver sound travels far to
neighbors ‘round & curious avians who dip and flutter. When my
lips pull embouchure & fingers tap the keys just right, trills like
crystal ring the air. Up and down the scales, a half century or
more, still bringing joy to me and the birds above. When my breath &
fingers bring to life the anthem of Ukraine, I send sound waves on
prayers across the seas to the other side of the world.
Jacquelyn Markham ©2025 (April 22)
You can listen to the Ukrainian anthem and download the flute sheet music (courtesy of flutetunes.com)
And below, a moving rendition of the Ukrainian National Anthem by students at Berklee College of Music.
Day 16, Poem-a-Day Challenge (a poem after Blue Bayou)
Here’s the prompt: Today’s prompt asks us to “imagine music in the context of a place, but more along the lines of a soundtrack laid on top of the location, rather than just natural sounds. Today, try writing a poem that similarly imposes a particular song on a place. Describe the interaction between the place and the music using references to a plant and, if possible, incorporate a quotation – bonus points for using a piece of everyday, overheard language.”
You can visit Napowrimo, Day 16, to learn more details. Meanwhile, here’s my poem, under the wire on Day 16 of the poem-a-day challenge for National Poetry Month, 2025!
after Blue Bayou
On the green Lime Lake
where the lonesome fishing boats
slap the long low dock
while the clear waves wash
the flat grey stones. I’m pining
for a boy back home, carve initials
in the white birch trunk to
keep that southern boy of mine
in my heart near the limestone lake.
The clear spring lake, where my grandpa
built in his overalls and my grandma
dreamed in her pillbox hat &
I was lonesome all of the time
‘cause I left my baby behind.
White birch bark curled into delicate boats
like the Natives’ boats, when they
waited to get back home, a canoe
filled with fish, silver in the sun.
They were lonesome all of the time.
Shallow green, quiet waves,
rustling trees, sandy bottom rises
with our steps and fishing boats
slap against the long dock
in a rhythm with the voices
of my family in the distance, and
the smell of campfire smoke.
I’m going back some day
come what may to
the memories of the clear
Lime Lake and the White Birch bark
where I carved my baby’s name
since I left my baby behind.
Birch bark grown, covers over
my baby’s name now. Oh, some
sweet day, gonna take away
this hurting inside.
I’m going back some day
to the green Lime Lake.
Jacquelyn Markham ©4/16/2025
Thank you for visiting Poet Voice @jacquelynmarkham.com
Prompt for Day 13 from NaPoWriMo:
Also, the short version below:
…here’s our prompt for the day (optional, as always). Donald Justice’s poem, “There is a gold light in certain old paintings,” plays with both art and music, and uses an interesting and (as far as I know) self-invented form. His six-line stanzas use lines of twelve syllables, and while they don’t use rhyme, they repeat end words. Specifically, the second and fourth line of each stanza repeat an end-word or syllable; he fifth and sixth lines also repeat their end-word or syllable. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that uses Justice’s invented form.
I found that the lines in Justice’s invented form varied from ten to thirteen syllables rather than always 12 syllables, soI did the same with my response and varied line length. Also, I wrote only one stanza of the required six lines as no length was set. Perhaps more to come!
Out from the rivered horizon the moon glows pink-gold.
We waited, yet nearly missed, as in silence it rose.
Across the way, the sunset in a sky of color,
a backdrop of azure splashed in red & rose.
On earth, our moods feel the presence of the moon.
All night, we cha-cha in the light of the moon.
Jacquelyn Markham© (4/13/2025)
Enjoy exploring the spiritual meaning, symbolism and astrology of the April’s pink moon:
How to Get the Most Out of April’s Pink Moon, According to an Astrologer by popsugar.com
Pink Moon Spiritual Meaning & Symbolism by wisdomofthespirit.com
Thanks for visiting me at Poet Voice, thinking about poetry everyday!
Day 11 Poem-a-Day Challenge
Although we were given the opportunity to write a “loose” villanelle today, I went with the traditional rhyme scheme. You will find the rules for this form linked below, courtesy of the Academy of American poets.
Rules of the Villanelle Form (from Academy of American Poets @ https://poets.org)
From NaPoWriMo, my favorite poem-a-day challenge website, Maureen Thorson offered this optional prompt: “Take a look at Kyle Dargan’s “Diaspora: A Narcolepsy Hymn.” This poem is a loose villanelle that uses song lyrics as its repeating lines (loose because it doesn’t rhyme). Your challenge is, like Dargan, to write a poem that incorporates song lyrics – ideally, incorporating them as opposing phrases or refrains.”
From Nina Simone’s Song “For All We Know” from NinaSimone.com
This might only be a dream *first refrain
Like the ripples, like the ripples in the stream *second refrain
Villanelle: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2.
Like a train a track that stretches ahead, the days blur by and we are now on Day 9 of the April poem-a-day challenge, chugging away toward the middle of the month. Below is the optional prompt from Maureen at the NaPoWriMo poetry site. This prompt is all about Rhyme & Sound which brought to my mind, a train ride.
“And here’s our optional prompt for the day. Like music, poetry offers us a way to play with and experience sound. This can be through meter, rhyme, varying line lengths, assonance, alliteration, and other techniques that call attention not just to the meaning of words, but the way they echo and resonate against each other. For a look at some of these sound devices in action, read Robert Hillyer’s poem, Fog. It uses both rhyme and uneven line lengths to create a slow, off-kilter rhythm that heightens the poem’s overall ominousness. Today we’d like to challenge you to try writing a poem of your own that uses rhyme, but without adhering to specific line lengths. For extra credit, reference a very specific sound, like the buoy in Hillyer’s poem.” Maureen Thorson
Thank you for visiting Poet Voice!
Jacquelyn ~
Kind of light and fun for a sixth day of the Poem-a-day challenge. How are you doing out there poets and writers and appreciaters of art?
Cinnamon
A dash of this spice
in my coffee, cream makes it
oh so golden
with a tingle of chai
but if it’s too heavy
it could make me wheeze
and if it’s too light
just a pinch makes me sneeze.
Like nutmeg, the benefits are great,
good for insomnia &
good for the skin.
Come fall, in the states
folks love pumpkin lattes
even if temps have not fallen.
The use of this spice goes back a long way!
3,000 years ago the sweet-smelling
spice was used to embalm the dead.
All of these uses give this spice
a noteworthy name—
until in our modern age
studies found lead in it.
Jacquelyn Markham ©2025
“Cinnamon” is a poem I wrote in response to Day 6 prompt of Poem-a-Day 2025 (30 Poems in 30 days). Check it out!
Now, dear readers, how did I come up with this odd poem? Why yes, it was the day 6 prompt that gave us so many choices and directions to go by . Please, visit NaPoWriMo to get all details, but basically, you choose a number from the chart which leads to a taste that becomes the title and two more words to work in. In my case, wheeze and golden were the words.
The poem starts out lovely with a sweet-smelling scent, but alas, like so many wonderful things in our modern world, the spice turned toxic. Not all, of course, but be mindful! Still, cinnamon has some health benefits according to some reports, like these claims from Cleveland Clinic.
And then, we may want some retro music to accompany our latte, so here it is! Neil Young’s “Cinnamon Girl.”
Neil Young, “Cinnamon Girl”
All poems brought to you by Poet Voice (J. Markham).
Hello lovers of art, music, & poetry!
Today, please visit the NaPoWriMo prompt for Day 5 here as it is a bit complicated, but fun:
From a chart provided, choose first a Musical notation–mine was to play like “you are about to start crying,” but I added Rubato because I love it (giving me the chance to slow down and pick up the tempo to express my emotions!). Rubato allows performers to add a personal touch to the music, with emphasis on emotional expression.
Then, we were to choose a genre (I chose the Tango!) and finally, a few words from a list. Being a hopeless romantic, I selected moonlight & roses.
And, here’s my poem for today.
This Tango Between Us
this tango between us makes me feel like
I am about to start crying
or it could be the moonlight in rubato
as the big bright sphere floats behind the clouds
then surprises with radiance when dark puffs fall away
crescendoing from a slow sweet tango
to a wild tarantella in 6/8 time!
I still want to cry though
as roses drop from the sky
because it is so beautiful—
this tango between us.
Jacquelyn Markham(c)2025
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