I am here working on the Poem-a-Day challenge for April and the Stafford Challenge as I explained in my previous post. I may not post everyday, but I am writing everyday and that is the goal! How is everyone else doing? Feel free to leave a comment below!
Today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo.net sparked my imagination:
“In your poem today (Day 6), try writing with a breezy, conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream.” (https://www.napowrimo.net/day-six-13/)
Since there was an element of dream in this prompt, I was inspired by a collage I created long ago from a dream. I will share the dream image here.
Note: Mother Mary in my poem & image is not associated with any particular religion, but more with my understanding of the feminine divine.
Poet Voice here, aka Jacquelyn Markham, poet. Welcome back to Poet Voice!!
Already participating in the Stafford Challenge (writing a poem a day all year), I am now overlapping with National Poetry Month, or as we know at Napowrimo.net, it is actually Na/GloPoWriMo (National/Global Poetry Writing Month)! Poets participate from all over the globe! Won’t you join us?
Napowrimo.net founder Maureen Thorson explains: “Each day, you’ll find here a new featured participant and daily resource. We’ll also have an optional daily prompt for those of you who find yourself in need of a little inspiration (or just like the additional challenge).” There are other sites, too, that provide prompts or you can simply begin on your own! Thank you Maureen (who founded Napowrimo in 2003!!) for your dedication to poets and National Poetry Month!
Happy 30th birthday to National Poetry Month, launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets! Below is this year’s poster, graced with words by our current U. S. Poet Laureate, Arthur Sze.
Rather than sharing my newly created poem from today, I am sharing a poem I wrote in another year during National Poetry Month.
“Taste of Sun: Eriobotrya japonica” was published by Petigru Review. Proof Poem-a-day can be productive! Enjoy!
I suppose you may be thinking that Poet Voice indulged in a rather long sabattical after we buttoned up April 2025 Poem-a-day challenge. Though I haven’t been totally resting on my laurels, I have taken a bit of a break from blogging—longer than I had really intended! I haven’t given up my creative life, however, and even wrote some short verses, one that I have shared with you now, “Queen of the Night.” Of course, I was flower-dedicated and watched the night long blooming of the Epiphyllum oxypetalum or commonly called “Queen of the Night.”
Remember that Vision Plan we started two years ago? With the Mercury Retrograde return, it seems appropriate to revisit our Vision Plans.
Now, as we are nearing that cross quarter point between summer and fall, often called Lammas (in the northern/western hemisphere of the US), there is still plenty of hot weather throughout many parts of the world. I don’t know about you, but climate change is never far from my mind! Despite the heat, however, we can focus on our creativity if we are one of those folks lucky enough to dodge the heat inside an air conditioned home. So, let’s return to our Vision Plan! Also, may I ask that you focus on world peace and kindness every day, so our collective energy can manifest them in our own lives and beyond.
Thank you! And, before we wrap-up July and spin around August, let us take time to check the short-term goals we set for ourselves some time ago in our personal Vision Plans. We are still experiencing Mercury Retrograde throughout the middle of August, so it is a good time to **revisit** our plans.
To refresh our memories, below is a quick review and step-by-step process of creating a Vision Plan:
Step 1: Write your vision statement. Your vision statement is futuristic and should inspire you. Mine is only three sentences long and I’ve written it in gold ink at the top of a new page in my journal.
Step 2: Next, write your mission statement which differs from but grows out of your vision statement. There are many resources on this process of writing a mission statement (search Strategic Plan) but think simply. What is it you do or want to do everyday? Focus on the present. Keep it brief.
Step 3: Now, short term goals that fit within your vision and your mission. I settled on five, but worked through several pages of writing to see the difference in the goals and the tasks it would take to accomplish them. You could focus on three, or more if you are energetic, but I suggest no more than seven. Can some of the short term goals be moved to long term goals, for example?
Step 4: The details, the tasks, the baby steps! What tasks will be needed to meet these goals? (You can break up tasks to smaller baby steps, too.)
Step 5:Create a timeline and in January 2026, review and revise for the new year!
Now that you have carved out the details of your Vision Plan, enjoy the full moon in Aquarius (which is also Lunar Lammas). Collaborate and network while the moon is full in Aquarius. And always, always, celebrate the fullness and beauty of the full moon and your own accomplishments coming to fruition over time, not unlike the Queen of the Night!
And remember to celebrate your vision plan for the creativity in your life!
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!
Day 24 PAD 2025NapoWriMo’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!
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!
Poet with Flute Serenading the Moon
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.”
Hope you enjoy writing a poem about what you learned joyfully!
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!
…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!
Lunatics
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.
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.
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.
Poet Voice 