Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt had me dreading writing. Pick ONE favourite poem?? And then pick just ONE word? A concrete noun, no less?
Sheesh.
But I did, following directions like a good student. Here’s the prompt:
Today, I’d like to challenge you to take one of your favorite poems and find a very specific, concrete noun in it. After you’ve chosen your word, put the original poem away and spend five minutes free-writing associations – other nouns, adjectives, etc. Then use your original word and the results of your free-writing as the building blocks for a new poem.
One of my first poetic loves was the poem I chose to use, Ishmael Reed’s “I am a cowboy in the boat of Ra.” It’s perfect in every way, a lovely jazz blues riff of a poem, and one I revisit regularly. It never fails to teach me something new.
Here’s my totally non-Reedish poem:
An alchemist
In hawk feathers
Turning the grey sky
To gold above his wings
Tea and Breath 