National Poetry Writing Month Day 5

Create Art Podcast

What is National Poetry Writing Month?

Welcome, art enthusiasts and wordsmiths alike, to another episode of Create Art Podcast! We are diving headfirst into the enchanting world of poetry as we celebrate National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). This annual event, which takes place every April, encourages poets and aspiring writers around the globe to embrace their creativity and commit to writing a poem each day for the entire month.

The Beauty of National Poetry Writing Month:

NaPoWriMo, similar to its prose-centric counterpart National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), is a celebration of the written word and the boundless creativity that can flow when one dedicates themselves to a daily practice. Poets of all levels of expertise are invited to take part, from seasoned wordsmiths to those just dipping their toes into the vast ocean of verse.

Create Art Podcast has always been a haven for artists to share their creative processes, and NaPoWriMo offers a unique opportunity for poets to reflect on their craft. With a daily commitment to producing poetry, participants discover new facets of their writing style, experiment with various forms, and explore uncharted emotional territories.

Prompt for today

Today we’d like you to start by taking a look at Alicia Ostriker’s poem, “The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog.” Now try your hand at writing your own poem about how a pair or trio of very different things would perceive a blessing or, alternatively, how these very different things would think of something else (luck, grief, happiness, etc).

Poem for Today

The Father the Kids and the unholy spirit

5 April 24

I lied many times to protect you

And I told you to never lie to me

I said your grandparents were dead

So that's only a half-lie

I told you some of the horrors that befell me at their hands

And I told you I was trying to be better than them

Because they didn’t know what they were doing

That was a lie

Through living, I discovered many of the things they told me were lies

And so you too will discover that there is no tooth fairy

There is no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus

There are evil people in the world that want to destroy you

And some of them you are related to

And that is what I have to protect you from

So, they are dead to me

And it's not too much of a lie

And I want you to not live in lies

Because when we live in lies

We are living in fear

And there is enough of that to go around

I don’t want you to fear the dark

Or the monsters that lurk in your head

Or the monsters that lurk in mine

I’ve killed them many times

He told us from a young age that his parents had died

We felt sorry for him and compassion

He told us eventually what had happened

When we turned 18

When he thought we could handle the truth

But we missed out on having a grandfather

When all the other kids had nice normal families

We wonder what else he has lied about

Is he really our father

Is he really kind and protective

Can we ever trust anything he says

This family lives in the shadows

And we want to see the light

Is the anger we feel at being lied to

The anger he struggles with

Is that what he has passed onto us

Or is it just another lie

He says he lied to protect us

Is that another lie

Was he just a spoiled brat mama’s boy

Who had never seen the light

You killed me off prematurely

Didn't send pictures of my grandkids

What did I do to you to deserve this

I gave you a happy home

I gave you the fear of my god

I gave everything I had to prepare you for this world

And you dashed it aside

I can’t forgive you ever for what you have done

And now that I have really died

You won’t be receiving the pictures that you begged from me

You will never understand why

I did what I did because it was what I knew to be good

And I lied about your mother many times

But she was a psycho and a bad lay

And you were a mistake and costly

And now you are killing off the family line

I told my third wife that you took after your psycho mother

And that's why we don’t talk

I told her you were possessed from long ago

And were a lost cause

I eventually gave up on ever hearing from you again

My only biological son

And I never reached out

I attended my church and got solace from them

In hopes that one day you would return like the prodigal parable

And make me proud for the first time

But you never did and here I am six feet under the ground

Are you happy yet

Have you been vindicated

As I lay here and rot

Are you happy yet

Spreading lies that help you believe your narrative

So what if I hit on your bride

So what if I picked you last

So what if I took from you the most precious thing in the world, your innocence

You should have seen what I went through

What I protected you from

Lies are the way we deal with the world

And lies will come back to you

And haunt you at night

Like I will do

And lies are all we have left

The lies we tell ourselves

The lies we tell our children

You have been recruited into this world of lies

So don’t think you are above it

Don’t think you are immune

Don’t think you are unsullied

Because I took what is most precious from you

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