I’m way behind withNaPoWriMo, but I thought I’d jump in and get my feet wet again anyway. I wasn’t too thrilled with the prompt for today, so I went back to yesterday’s prompt. It was to write an Erasure poem. The process involves taking a poem or some other text that has already been written and begin erasing words, but leaving the remaining words in the same order as they appear in the original. Then put those remaining words together (still in the same order), creating a brand new poem.
I actually did the experiment twice. Both times I used a poem I had written in the past. The first piece “Yellow” turned out to offer a light, rather lilting new poem, but it’s just a little quirky and requires a new title and new picture to fit the change.
The second piece “Snowchild,” amazingly allowed me to erase a whole bunch of words, yet say exactly the same thing in the new poem that I had said in the original. Wow. That surprised me a little because I erased a LOT of words.
Hope you enjoy both experiments.
YELLOW (Original poem)
Yellow sun, yellow moon,
Yellow ribbon on yellow balloon;
Yellow crayons for coloring,
Yellow bird that chirps and sings.
Yellow squash ripe on the vine,
Yellow daffodils — all mine.
Yellow hair, with cheeks so pink,
Yellow lemonade to drink;
YELLOW (Erasure Version) New Title: “Getting the Green Light”
Sun,
moon,
bird that chirps and sings.
Daffodils –
all mine;
lemonade to drink.
Bright light,
sometimes yellow,
turns to green.
~~~
SNOWCHILD (Original Poem)
When I was a child, I thought as a child,
And snow was a thing so delightful.
From school we were free; we got wet to the knees,
And our mom’s day was thrown all off schedule.
But now that I’m grown, I must do on my own
All the chores Mom and Dad used to dread:
Stock up food by the loads, drive on slippery roads,
Shovel snow, and repair that old sled.
Now I look with dismay at the skies leaden gray
As I trudge to the store for supplies.
De-icer and salt sell out fast with no halt.
I need new boots to tread on the ice.
The wind from the north is bitter and harsh,
But my temperature, still it is rising;
I am in a foul mood, for I see nothing good
That can come from a snowstorm arriving.
But then the flakes start, and I feel in my heart –
Watching white, fluffy, wonderful, wild
Filling all of my world with such beauty unfurled –
That in truth I am still just a child!
~
SNOWCHILD (Erasure Version) (No new title necessary)
I was a child;
snow was delightful.
Now I’m grown;
I see nothing good
from a snowstorm.
Flakes start, and in my heart,
I am still a child!
This week Word Press has challenged us to come up with photos that focus on the hue (color) that represents us. I love color. I’m happiest when my world is full of color. When I moved into the house that is my current home, all of the walls in the house were white. With the exception of the tiny bathroom, we painted every one of those walls a bright color, and it’s been a joy to live in those rooms for the past 13 years.
I would like to say that I love every single color in the world, but — well — there is one exception: orange. Now if we’re talking about the succulent fruit, I definitely want my oranges to be “orange.” But in every other instance, orange seems to grate on my soul. I feel bad about it. I feel that I’m being unfair to orange, but there it is — might as well be honest.
All of my life my favorite color has been blue — with yellow running a very close second. That’s not surprising, since blue and yellow have been scientifically proven to have the most positive effects on the human psyche (barring some weird abnormality) of all the colors of the spectrum. And their effects are even more positive when both colors are used together. As an author, I learned a long time ago that when planning book covers, including the colors of blue and yellow will automatically add significant appeal to the cover and cause a positive reaction in the viewer.
What has surprised me somewhat over the past three years, however, is that I have grown to have a strong affinity and affection for the color green. For some reason, unknown to me, green has sort of eased its way more deeply into my soul and taken up residence very near the top of my color palate. When I am in stores and I need to choose a product that offers a choice of color in the material or the packaging, I find myself reaching for green about 90% of the time these days. And last April, when I took part in the NaPoWriMo challenge, I found myself creating a poem about the color green. Go figure.
So for this week’s photo challenge, I am sharing four pictures of the color that, to my surprise, best represents me this year: GREEN.
First in line is one of the great loves of my life: Big Blue, my gorgeous Blue Spruce tree, that I planted when he was merely 5 feet tall. He’s green, of course, but each spring, when the brand new buds begin to burst forth, that special brilliant green that signals new life sends me running for my camera.
~
Second, is a picture of my Christmas wreath from this past Christmas. I was definitely into green; hence the brilliant green Poinsettia that decorates the green wreath.
~
Third on my list is a book cover. I authored a new creative writing curriculum this year, and for the cover, I chose — yep, you guessed it — a GREEN typewriter. I fell in love with this green typewriter shortly before I completed the book, and there was just no question in my mind about using it as the artwork for the cover.
~ And last, but hopefully not least, is the poem I wrote last April, in honor of the color that spoke to me so strongly back then and still does so today.
~
I wonder if there’s any significance in the fact that green is made up of a mixture of blue and yellow ….
And sometimes yellow can’t be seen: It hides in blue and turns to green.
~~~
I have to admit I sort of cheated, because I originally wrote this poem a few weeks ago as part of the National Poetry Writing Month challenge. But it just seemed to fit this prompt from Julia so perfectly that I thought it would be a shame not to use it. And with 97 words, what more could I ask for?
Join the fun by going toJulia‘ssite for the details.
Day 28, and our prompt is to write a poem based on a color. I’ve actually done that, since I wrote two poems the day we were supposed to write one that began and ended with the same word. I wrote about the color green that day. However, I didn’t think it was fair to use it again for this prompt, so I have written about a different color today. Here’s my totally light-hearted look at
YELLOW
Yellow sun, yellow moon, Yellow ribbon on yellow balloon;
Yellow crayons for coloring, Yellow bird that chirps and sings.
This is the 18th day of National Poetry Writing Month, and the prompt today is to write a poem that begins and ends with exactly the same word. If you want to join in the fun there’s still plenty of time. Visit this site: http://www.napowrimo.net/
I was inspired on this challenge to use free verse, which I rarely use. Moreover, I was inspired to write two separate poems for this particular prompt. This is my second poem. The first appears in its own post previous to this one.
LIQUID COLOR
Green is a liquid color. It flows over my soul in a gentle way. It runs through my feelings like a child at play. It springs up in me like an April day. The most liquid of colors is green.
The Happy Wordcrafter 