Elephantastic
April 30, Napowrimo 2026. I decided yesterday that I would not be following today’s prompt because I had already been inspired to write something. Over the weekend read a post on LinkedIn about an elephant that had done something remarkable and someone commented that it was “elephantastic”. I was so struck by this word and,…
Sorbet of regret
April 29, Napowrimo 2026. The penultimate day and we are prompted to ponder how our past is reflected in our present after reading Jennifer Moxley’s “After Turning the Clocks Back.” We are to try comparing our everyday present life with our past self, using specific details to conjure aspects of our past and present in…
Vacation
April 28, Napowrimo 2026. Today’s inspiration is Victoria Chang’s poem, “The Lovers.” It’s a short and somewhat shocking, possibly surreal that ends with a very direct statement of a “truth.” Its form is six lines, three sentences with a title that works for the poem but is only obliquely related to its text. Our aim…
Toast
April 27, Napowrimo 2026. Today’s prompt is a rather straightforward one that I found testing. We are to write a poem with equal numbers of lines in each stanza and give an instruction to the reader. I’m not much in the mood to tell people what to do right now, so I left it more…
Recipe poetica
April 26, Napowrimo 2026. I awake on the last Sunday of the month to be asked to write my Ars Poetica – an explanation of why I write or what I think poetry is about. I have the same reaction to this as when I’m asked to name my favourite band, song, cake, wine, beer,…
Relief
April 25, Napowrimo 2026. Our prompt today – to write a poem in which we use at least three metaphors for a single thing, include an exclamation, ruminate on the definition of a word, and come back in the closing line to the image or idea with which you opened the poem. Mother, please tell…
Bilious semaphore
April 24, Napowrimo 2026. Today we were given the resource of a curated selection of letters written by the English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, a poet who I admire greatly. His idiosyncratic refusal to stick to preferred poetic structures has without doubt inspired me and follows perfectly behind yesterday’s work on form with the Villanelle.…
A form of meaning
April 22, Napowrimo 2026. Today’s test, write a Villanelle. Although originally a highly structured form, the Villanelle, with its roots buried deep in Italian peasant soil song, has been mutated by poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Randal Mann, Jennifer Horne and Jennifer Hasegawa. I’ve never been very good with rules, especially strict ones. Resisting form…
Puppy Love
April 22, Napowrimo 2026. Jaswinder Bolina’s poem “Mood Ring” imagines the speaker as both himself and an interior being. It’s quite silly . . . and not silly at the same time. A sort of “serious fun.” Today, we’re challenge to write our own poem in which the speaker is in dialogue with themselves. This…
Sue Brickay’s gift
April 21, Napowrimo 2026. Three weeks in and our daily test is to play around with the theme of our or other’s nicknames. I very rarely went by a pseudonym and loathe it when anyone shortens my given name – I was given it for a reason and that reason is good enough for me.…
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Missives & Musings 