A Poet's Universe

Welcome to NaPoVerse. This is 2015's version of last year's mini events. Here you will find daily prompts, inspirational photos, poetry tips and more. Subscribe to the forum above to keep up with us all month long!

As always in the tradition of NaPo, this is a daily free-for-all. Anyone who wants to join in is encouraged to do so. The purpose of NapoVerse is to encourage others to read and write more poetry and to provide that extra push for those struggling to reach their monthly quotas.

We hope to provide everyone with the resources to improve your poetry as well as inspire you to reach your poetry goals and have fun with it!



I. Generating Material for poems
Day 1: Notice And Remember
Day 2: A Poem as Muse
Day 3:

Spoiler

Improving Your Diction
Days 4-6
Implementing Sound Techniques
Days 7-9
Developing Your Voice
Days 10-12
Imagery and Figurative Language
Days 13-15
Adding Layers and Depth
Days 16-18
Syntax and all There Is
Days 19-21
Lines and Stanzas
Days 22-24
Revision
Day 25-27
Writer's Block and Reviewing Poems on YWS
Day 28-30.

Yes, we've got some shiny things for all participants! For all who have finished a prompt - post the link to your wall along with the hashtag:
#NapoVerse.

You will need to complete the full 30 prompts to receive the Golden NaPo Trophy, but with each prompt completed, you can receive up to 30 gemstones to display on your wall, like these:



The time limit is April 30. So, get writing! If you have any questions, comments or concerns, post them in the discussion thread here!

Quietly observe the world around you and take notice of all things mundane and small and overlooked. Be hyper vigilant when recording any and all experiences, try to examine it with a fine-tune microscope. Record the input of all of your senses and try to re-create that experience or observation.





The kitchen is its readiness
white green and orange things
leak their blood selves in the soup.

Ritual sacrifice that snaps
an odor at my nose and starts
my tongue to march
slipping in the liquid of its drip.

The day, silver striped
in rain, is balked against
my window and the soup.




Jot down the important events from a particular year, for example, the summer of 2002. Freewrite about it, see where it takes you.

OR

Jot down 3 memories from the distant past. Now jot down 3 things overhead throughout your day-- what did you hear at the grocery store? from the radio? during a bus or train ride? Lastly, look out your window and what do you see? Smoke billowing in the breeze? A neighbor walking a dog? These bits and pieces that you’ve gathered here may have revealed a connection to you, may have excited you, or inspired something better for you. Or perhaps not--but you are writing!

Complete this prompt for:

When trying to find what to write about, return to your sources of inspiration. Read poems that make your jaw drop, try to figure out how the poet achieved the effect and try to imitate it in your own works.










Find a poem you like, then place your notepad or piece of paper next to the poem and begin line by line going through what the poet has done. Where the poet has a metaphor, make one up yourself. Where the poet has rhyme, try to rhyme yourself. Follow the pattern of enjambment and line breaks the poet has done from line to line and stanza to stanza. Try not to be too derivative though! Play around with it, read it backwards, and see where it will take you. Include the link to the original poem with your own, or have it in a spoiler.

Complete this prompt for:

Sometimes life gets too busy work and school and activities and there's never time to sit up at a desk and execute a fine-tuned work of striking syntax, thoughts, emotions - but we do have other tools in our belt. When the need to write arises, and to keep your muse from atrophy - jot down something in pocket book, or a cellphone and carry it with you always. The little bits and pieces gathered into that book will eventually marinate and transform into something worth keeping, I guarantee it.






I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day — at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.



Dig through your old notebooks, your old diary entries, your pocket books from last year’s NaPo, or maybe even try digging through your portfolios here on YWS - pick any random lines gathered from a few of these sources and find a way to re-envision them or make a collage of them!

Complete this prompt for:

Do not give your reader a white screen with words on it. Give your reader a small, warm animal of your hand and aim to change the reader’s molecules. You must seek to create an experience by allowing the poem to act as a conduit for the reader to enter through. Provide language with muscle -- verbs with edges, palpably visible nouns, as few adjectives as possible and even fewer articles. It’s not simply about compression or diction, but the creation of a visceral experience on the page-right there, right then. --- Pam Bernard






It is moonlight and white where
I slink away from my cat-quiet blue rubber truck
and motioned myself to back it up to your ear.
I peel back the doors of the van and begin
to hushload into your sleep
the whole damn botanical cargo of Spring.

Sleeper, I whisk you
Trivia and Illium, Sweet Peristalsis, Flowering Delirium.


Sprigs of Purple Persiflage and Lovers’ Leap, slips
of Hysteria stick in my hair. I gather clumps of Timex,
handfuls of Buttertongues, Belly buttons and Bluelets.

I come with Trailing Nebula, I come with Late-Blooming
Paradox, with Creeping Pyromania, Pink Apoplex,
and Climbing Solar Plexus,

whispering: Needlenose,
Juice Cup, Godtem, Nexus, Sex-us, Condominium.




Choose a category-- fruits, vegetables, fish, bones in the human body, etc. You’ll want to choose something broad that has a lot of variety. Then create a bank of words about that category that intrigue you, words with great sounds, rhyming or alliterative words, verbs, adjectives, etc. Make up some words of your own. Try to make words sound as delicious as possible. Then begin with "Because I never learned the names of _______" Then create a poem from your word hoard, make it rhythmic, make it flow and make it yours. The beauty of Jellema's poem above, is that a lot of the words are made-up. Feel free to use this technique as well. Be creative with it!

Complete this prompt for:

GOOGLE and WIKIPEDIA ARE YOUR FRIENDS. As a poet keep your eyes and ears open for tasty words. Google and wikipedia are great sources for new diction as they can lead you to websites or articles with specialized information about a particular subject. A quick google search results in these juicy alternative words for “blueberry”: Rabbiteye, Primadonna, Sapphire, Snowchaser.








* A foley artist is someone who uses everyday objects to mimic sound effects for films.



Choose an odd job as a subject for your poem, for example: the picture above is a cliff dancer. There are also beer tasters, fortune cookie writers, crash-test dummies, YWS war gladiators. After choosing your odd job, do a Google search. Find some appropriate articles and jot down words that are special to this job. Choose words that sound and look pleasing to you. Then, using first person voice write your draft and employ some of these specialized diction.


Complete this prompt for:

1.) Get rid of adverbs by choosing a stronger, more vivid verb.


2.) Instead of telling, choose to show.


3.) Get rid of adjectives by choosing a stronger, more vivid noun.


4.) Instead of imposing a judgement for the reader, show it to the reader and allow them to interpret on their own


5.) Choose to be specific. What type of flower? What kind of beauty? Always be creative with it!







Chew your way into the world.
Munch leaves. Molt. Rest. Molt
again. Self-reinvention is everything.
Spin your nests. Cultivate bristles.
Don’t get sentimental about your skins.
Grow. Develop a yen for nettles.
Alternate crumpling and climbing. Rely
on your antennae. Sequester poisons
in your body for use at a later date.
When threatened, emit foul odors
in self-defense. Behave and confuse
your predators: change colors, spit,
or feign death. If all else fails, taste terrible.




Write a portrait poem - a poem that shows a particular scene or place, a dreamscape, or a moment where you’ve learned or experienced something new, such as your first time learning how to surf. Your first attempt trying to cook an exotic recipe. The first trip you took to a foreign country. You may even write about an experience from an alternative point of view, such as in this poem, Gerstler writes about survival in the point of view of a caterpillar.

Now that you have a draft going. Go through each word, line by line. Erase all the adjectives and all the adverbs that you see. Erase as many prepositional words as possible. Did you lose a lot of your poem? If so, refer back to prompts 5 and 4 - allow your nouns and verbs to do all the work and try again!

If you’re still struggling. That’s okay. Poetry is like a sculpture and the process of erasing, eliminating, cutting and polishing is what poetry is all about. This prompt is extreme but the exercise is a good one. Keep chipping and chiseling away at that poem until you get something you like without any adjectives or adverbs used! **I will allow ONE adjective or adverb, but that’s all. Absolutely no haikus. Needs to have at least 10 lines. (No one-word lines) **

Because when you have a poem that can evoke an experience without any use of fluff - you have mastered diction!

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Rhyme. It’s not stupid, it’s not sentimental - at least, you’re not allowed to write it that way. Think about rhyme as closure, as a way to pull the poem together, as a way to make the poem resonate and echo with the reader for far longer than it would without rhyme.

Some techniques on creating rhymes that resonate, rather than sound cheesy or predictable:
- vary the line lengths, don’t be constrained to a single meter
- use partial rhymes, slant rhymes, or sight rhymes
- place your rhymes farther apart

For the poem that sounds too sing-songy and too predictable-- try this: for each second or third rhyme, find a word that’s similar in sound and see if you can make some substitutions. For example, handle and candle can become handle and rekindle. Love and above can become love and over.







Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part; or kiss
anyway, let’s start with that, with the kissing part,
because it’s better than the parting part, isn’t it--
we’re good at kissing, we like how the part goes:
we part our lips, our mouths get near and nearer,
then we’re close, my breasts, your chest, our bodies partway
to making love, so we might as well, part of me thinks--
the wrong part, I know, the bad part, but still
let’s pretend we’re at that party where we met
and scandalized everyone, remember that part? Hold me
like that again, unbutton my shirt, part of you
wants to I can tell, I’m touching that part and it says
yes, the ardent partisan, let it win you over
it’s hopeless, come, we’ll kiss and part forever.





Writing a Sonnenizio (spin-off of a sonnett)

Begin with a line borrowed from someone else’s sonnet.

Select a single word from that line and repeat it in each subsequent line. Consider part of speech and different forms of the word. In the example poem, Addonizio is repeating the word "part" but she also uses partway, party, and partisan. She uses her word as noun, verb and participle.

Have a total of 14 lines.

Make the last two lines rhyme.

Complete this prompt for: