Writer’s Digest 15th Annual Poem-A-Day Challenge, Days 1-2

There are days I consider unsubscribing to everything in my email Inbox. And then I receive emails like today’s from Writer’s Digest, advertising their 15th annual Poem A Day Challenge in honor of National Poetry Month.

One prompt per day. One poem per day. That’s it.

Appropriately, the Day 4 prompt (the day on which I learned about the challenge) is “Write a Catch-Up Poem.” That will have to wait for tomorrow’s post, since I don’t want to bog down you readers with tons of poetry.

Prompt 1 (Day 1): Write an F-Title Poem

This topic fell into my lap while researching forms of poetry. I knew I wanted to explore writing a bunch of shorter-length poems throughout the month of April. A Google Search for “forms of poetry” led me to a list including the tanka form. Conveniently, tautogram follows tanka at the Writer’s Digest “List of 168 Poetic Forms for Poets.” Of course I had to try my hand at tautograms, but how long should I make the poem? Fortunately, the senryu form of haiku seemed perfect.

FIRST

Prompt 2 (Day 2): Write a Second Chance Poem

Here’s what I never told my classmates: I’d been writing poetry for years before our 7th grade Language Arts poetry unit. My grandmother gave me a copy of If There Would be No Light by Sahara Sunday Spain. I was maybe ten years old, yet felt so inspired by Sunday Spain’s verse–some of it about incredibly mundane topics! (A nice juxtaposition to the religious poems printed on the inspirational posters at my Catholic elementary school.) Most of my poetry was equal parts angsty and hopeful. I still cherish the short poem I wrote at age 11 about my lava lamp. I cherish other poems as well. Those will never see the light of day.

Out of the depths of my memory palace, I pulled this limerick. (Miraculously, I recalled most of this poem despite tossing the original ~6 years ago). I wrote it for that 7th grade poetry unit. My teacher genuinely considered it funny. (She was–is?–the kind of teacher who’s warm and kind yet has a streak of humor that makes its way into quizzes and tests.) I ended up being her teacher’s aide in 8th grade, actually. She was awesome. Thirteen-year-old Kellye would have been mortified to post this publicly (Hello, Xanga!) The Kellye of 2022 is impressed she recalled the entire poem. Here, I give my childhood writing a second chance at an audience.

BOB

There once was a man named Bob
On Wednesday he got fired from his job
He ached and moaned
And moped and groaned
Then suddenly fell off a log