This month, I’m tagging along with Christie, Margaret, Jone, Mary Lee, and other writers to play with poetry for National Poetry Writing Month. I’ll be creating poems using haikubes, metaphor dice, magnet poetry, paint chips and anything else that catches my fancy.
I’m always sad when the end of March comes around, and it’s time to stop the daily slice. But I’m always relieved when the end of April comes around, and it’s time to wrap up the daily poem challenge. National Poetry Writing Month turned out to be a lot more fun and surprising than I expected, thanks to metaphor dice, magnet poetry kits, paint chips, and nail polish colors (and yes, even the dreaded haikubes). It wasn’t until the last week of the challenge that the constraints started to fell, well, constraining.
The last few days have been especially hard, though yesterday’s paint chip list poem telling the story of what I saw on my hike is one of my favorites of the month. That’s mostly because it turns out there are paint colors called Dakota Trail and Prairie Dog. I will never run out of paint chip poems to write as long as there is Dakota Trail and Prairie Dog.
Today’s task was my final magnet poem. I got the idea for it yesterday when a colleague said something about writing a list poem about enthusiasms. I thought a poem about enthusiasms sounded perfect for what would no doubt be a cranky and uninspired final day of the poetry challenge. But I couldn’t find the word enthusiasm in my set. I had happiness three times, however, so that’s what this poem ended up being called.
happiness
the soft purring body of a cat
the smell of earth after rain
the comfort of grass beneath blue sky
bird song in the gray light of snow
a slow day that promises silence
the moment you begin to write this poem
To be honest, happiness on Day 30 of a thirty day poetry challenge is really the moment you finish writing this poem. Also, Chipotle has discovered that he likes magnet poetry at least as well as haikubes, and I spent most of the writing of this poem fending off a cat who was determined to do violence to the magnet strips. This sweet napping lap cat photo was taken on a day when I was not writing magnet poetry and sending him into a frenzy.
the dirigible plum 
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