So today’s NaPoWriMo.net prompt is a calligramme. Shape poetry. Concrete poetry. However you want to put it. The words are written on the page in a specific shape, usually relating to what the poem is actually about.
I tried doing this. I tried really hard. I thought if I could first draw something then write around the lines of the drawing and finally rub the drawing out, that would do the job. I fell at the first hurdle, that hurdle being I cannot draw. Instead, I picked a prompt from Twitter and did that instead. NaPoWriMo.net does say the prompts are optional.
Here are our poems.
Christopher – prompt from SpeakPoetry and is ‘time is relative’.
Time is relative
but which one?
An alcoholic aunt,
lurching forward rapidly while
at the same time slow and encumbered
by what has come before
An over-friendly uncle?
That cousin who keeps dissected frogs
in boxes under his bed.
Maybe the mother who gave birth to us,
helped shape our future while
being a constant reminder of
where we have come from?
No.
More likely it is the disappointed
father who stands back
and only speaks up
every now and again
to tell you you have
wasted your life.
Keri
Whatever happened to flowers
at work
instead of sexting on a lunch
break?
The days of dinner in a
restaurant
appear to have been replaced
with a trip to KFC.
A deep meaningful kiss
after wining and dining
cancelled out by a fuck
in a fancy night club’s toilet.
Or a hand job in a cab,
a kebab half-eaten gripped
in pre-cum fist, mayonnaise
dripping and a £50 soiling charge.
And they say romance is dead.
But we know it isn’t;
it just got a fuck buddy.