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April 30th: Palinode

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Escapril prompt #30:  "Do you hear that?” Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #30:  "I saw your ghost on a train downtown.” Napowrimo :  Well, we knew it would come to this, what with the inexorable march of time and all. Today is the final day of Na/GloPoWriMo. Thank you all for joining the challenge during this, its twentieth year! We’ll be back tomorrow with our final featured participant and some housekeeping information, as we prepare to go back into our long sleep (like   Robert Frost’s woodchuck ) until next spring. But for now, here’s our daily featured participant is  Farah Lawal Harris , who responded to Day 29’s food-based prompt with a paean to Nigerian cooking. Our final daily resource is a pair of podcasts:  Wacky Poem Life , sponsored by the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry (yes, there is a Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry!), and  Haiku Chronicles , a podcast focused on haiku and related poetic forms. And now for our last prompt of the year...
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April 29th: Food or Meal as a Person

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Escapril prompt #29:  "Changed opinion.” Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #29:  " Nothing feels like home .” Napowrimo :  Hello, everyone, and happy End-of-Na/GloPoWriMo Eve. Our featured daily participant is  A Writer Without Words , where the “index” poem for Day 28 doesn’t just give us index entries for something delicious, but does so in abecedarian fashion. Today’s featured resource is Brevity Magazine’s archive of  craft essays . And here’s our daily (optional) prompt. Start by reading Alberto Rios’s poem “ Perfect for Any Occasion .” Now, write your own two-part poem that focuses on a food or type of meal. At some point in the poem, describe the food or meal as if it were a specific kind of person. Give the food/meal at least one line of spoken dialogue. Happy writing!
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April 28th: *Sustenance Day* Index Poem or Ten Lies

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Escapril prompt #28:  "A misunderstanding."  Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #28:  "Ain't no peace like peace of mind." Sustenance:   Today’s prompt (optional, as always). This prompt is from  Daisy Fried , and the basic idea is to write a ten-line poem in which each line is a lie. Your lies could be silly, complicated, tricky, or obvious. To warm up, read https  The White Lie  by Don Paterson. Napowrimo :  Just three days left in Na/GloPoWriMo 2023! Today’s featured participant is  Jacquelyn Markham , who brings us a bouquet of yellow celosias in response to Day 27’s “Blank of Blank” prompt. And for today’s resource, we have another book and two chapbooks published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring poems written during the challenge. For our book, we have  Bruce Niedt ‘s collection,  In the Bungalow of Colorful Aging . And for our chapbooks, here’s Lorraine Whelan’s  Home Sweet Home Goodbye  and Nina Lewis’s  Fragile...
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April 27th: The Blank of Blank

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Escapril prompt #27:  "Escape artist.” Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #27:  "Teach me how to fall in love with someone new.” Napowrimo : Happy Thursday, everyone, and happy twenty-seventh day of Na/GloPoWriMo. Today, our featured participant is  Veruugal , who brings us a moving elegy in response to Day 26’s “what’s in a name?” prompt. For a little more context, see the comment  here . As today’s featured resource, we have another duo of books written by Na/GloPoWriMoers, and featuring work first drafted during Na/GloPoWriMo. First, here’s Victoria Doerper’s  What if We All Bloomed?: Poems of Nature, Love, and Aging , and next, Mirjana M’s  Colour Me in Cayenne & Chlorine . And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today, begin by reading Bernadette Mayer’s poem “ The Lobelias of Fear .” Now write your own poem titled “The ________ of ________,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank i...
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April 26th: Portrait Poem

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Escapril prompt #26:  "Repetition.” Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #26:  "Sad twist of fate” Napowrimo :  Welcome back for Day Twenty-Six of Na/GloPoWriMo, everybody. Our featured participant for the day is  Joe Hesch , where the love poem for Day 25 is full of dreamy, surreal similes. And now, here’s a new pair of books published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring poems written during the yearly challenge. First up, we have longtime participant  Gloria D. Gonsalves ’ book  Let’s Go Walking in the Storm , and next,  Dawn Anderson ’s book  World Stamp-Poems . Both Gloria and Dawn actually have several poetry collections featuring work first written during Na/GloPoWriMo. Check out their websites to see more! Our (optional) prompt for day asks you to write a portrait poem that focuses on or plays with the meaning of the subject’s name. This could be a self-portrait, a portrait of a family member or close friend, or even a portrait of a famous or hist...
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April 25th: Love poem in the style of e.e.c.

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Escapril prompt #25:  "Motel.” Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #25:  "Not trying to sound emotional.” Napowrimo :  Happy 25 th  day of Na/GloPoWriMo, all! Today’s featured participant is  Anna Enbom , who reminds us, in response to Day 24’s “review” prompt, that art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. As we close out our twentieth year, the featured resources for the next few days will take the form of books and chapbooks published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring work first drafted as part of the Na/GloPoWriMo challenge. First, up, we have  Vince Gotera ’s book  The Coolest Month  and  Elizabeth Boquet ’s collection of new and selected poems,  Galoshes . Last but not least, here’s our (optional) prompt for the day. Begin by reading e e cummings’ poem [ somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond ]. This is a pretty classic love poem, so well-known that it has spawned  at least one silly meme . Today’s prompt challenges...
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April 24th: *Sustenance Day* 20 Questions or Poetic Review

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Escapril prompt #24:  "Fear."  Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #24:  "I'm a mistake and an earthquake." Sustenance:   Please read Billy Collin's poem " Questions about Angels " and use it for a springboard for today's prompt. Today’s prompt (optional, as always) is a little something I’m calling “Twenty Questions.” The idea is to write a poem in which every sentence, except for the last one, is in the form of a question. That’s it! It can be as long or short as you like. The questions can be deep and philosophical (‘what is the meaning of life?’) or routine and practical (‘are you going to eat that?’). Or both! Napowrimo :  Wow! I’m finding it hard to believe this, but as of today, there’s just a week left in Na/GloPoWriMo 2023. Our featured participant today is  Quest for Whirled Peas , where the response to Day 23’s multi-part poem prompt has a lovely, haiku-like sense of present-ness.: Today, our daily resource is  this very strange website ...
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April 1st: Poets, Start Your Engines

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April 1 is finally here, and with it comes Na/GloPoWriMo. Huzzah! Our first featured participant is  Flipped Serendipity , where the “fun fact” early-bird poem draws attention to something many of us experience when starting a challenge like NaPoWriMo — even if you feel very enthusiastic about the project, it can be hard to push yourself out of your rut and really get writing. But the first step to shaking the rust off your verse is to get something down on the page. And having done these thirty-day-challenges many times, I can say that it does get easier as you go. Speaking of featured participants, one of the ways we find them is through the comments on each day’s post. Don’t know where to find those? Just click on the title to the day’s post, and it will take you to a new page featuring just that post, and a comment section. Many folks paste links to their daily efforts there, or if they don’t have websites, copy out the poems themselves. The conversation between participants in...
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April 30th: Palinode

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Escapril prompt #30:  "Do you hear that?” Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #30:  "I saw your ghost on a train downtown.” Napowrimo :  Well, we knew it would come to this, what with the inexorable march of time and all. Today is the final day of Na/GloPoWriMo. Thank you all for joining the challenge during this, its twentieth year! We’ll be back tomorrow with our final featured participant and some housekeeping information, as we prepare to go back into our long sleep (like   Robert Frost’s woodchuck ) until next spring. But for now, here’s our daily featured participant is  Farah Lawal Harris , who responded to Day 29’s food-based prompt with a paean to Nigerian cooking. Our final daily resource is a pair of podcasts:  Wacky Poem Life , sponsored by the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry (yes, there is a Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry!), and  Haiku Chronicles , a podcast focused on haiku and related poetic forms. And now for our last prompt of the year...
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April 9th: Sonnets

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Escapril prompt #9:  "Advertisement."  Angelea Lowes'   prompt  #9:  "Everywhere I go, I bring the rain." Napowrimo: Welcome back for the ninth day of Na/GloPoWriMo, fellow poets! Our daily participant is  To Create . . .  where Day Eight’s “twenty projects” prompt resulted in a breathtakingly claustrophobic family memory. But I also want to give a shout-out to all of you who stuck with the prompt! I know that it was a lot. Today’s poetry resource is  UbuWeb,  a vast repository of the avant-garde. You could get lost for days among the films, audio recordings, PDFs of small press publications, and other oddities here. If you’re looking to have the top of your head screwed off (figuratively), check out the “ 365 Days Project .” Finally, here’s our prompt for the day (as always, optional). We’re calling today Sonnet Sunday, as we’re challenging you to write in what is probably the most robust poetic form in English. A traditional sonnet is 14 li...
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