Hello friend, I am Timothy Kimo Brien, head instigator at Create Art Podcast where we help you to tame the inner critic and create more than we consume. Every year in April National Poetry Writing Month occurs, this is a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days and comes from the NaPoWriMo site. When you participate you are given a prompt every day for 30 days and you can choose to follow the prompt or not. Each prompt has a commentary with it and a style of poetry that you may not be familiar with. I enjoy it because it stretches my creative muscles and helps me organize my thoughts. I also really enjoy a good challenge. There is also an opportunity to read other people's work as they post on their websites and for you to comment on their work, giving them encouragement or offering a suggestion. Care to join me on this journey?
Day 30 Prompt
And now for our final (still optional!) prompt. Today’s prompt is based on a prompt written by Jacqueline Saphra, and featured in this group of prompts published back in 2015 by The Poetry Society of the U.K. This prompt challenges you to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place. It could be a real place, like your local park, or an imaginary or unreal place, like “the bottom of your heart,” or “where missing socks go.” Fill your poem with sensory details, and make them as wild or intimate as you like.
Day 30 Poem
Where is Sanity
I zigged when I should have zagged
The map I used was from three hundred years ago
And the gas station I picked it up in still sold leaded gas
So when I left the station, my car coughed tremendously
Like a tuberculosis patient waiting for their next treatment
I tried to phone a friend when I grew up
And started this journey of adulthood
Only to find out
She was a paranoid schizophrenic
That liked to chase her kids around the house
With knives drawn
Thinking we were spawned from the anti christ
Which turned out to be her husband
I tried talking with a man of so many letters
The alphabet couldn’t keep up
And as I talked with him,
His phone blew up with messages and calls
He didn’t hear a word I said
And decided I needed pills
So I pretended not to hear him
Or when the pharmacy called
All I am trying to do is get from where I was
To where you are
In hopes that you know the way
I tried people with smaller letters behind their names
One used my connections to get a better job
Another used my knowledge to help her clients dodge dui’s
So now I am looking at another person
With smaller letters behind their name
When I asked my doc where my motivation went
He sent me to CVS for a pick up
I’m wondering if he is going to be my dealer now
He didn’t give me a free sample
Aren’t you supposed to get the first hit for free
Think I’ll just lay back
And see if there are any hidden messages
In the vinyl records I play
That would lead me to where I want to go
Maybe there is something in the flat earthers podcast
Or in the teachings of Q’Anon
My brain isn’t that fried yet
I think its time for a little Tom Waits
Or maybe some Trane
They have kept me alive all these years
Maybe the deep bass whisperings of Ken Nordine
Or the absurdist stories of Joe Frank
I think I may have not listened close enough
To my dead heroes
And I may just need to reconnect that link
If you know the way to sanity
I’d ask that you not try to send it telepathically
The quickest way is not a straight line
I know that from my experiences with cartography
Just point me in the general direction
And let me know if there is a coffee shop along the way
I may need to fuel up
Reaching Out
To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and lets start that conversation.
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