Playing catch-up today. I almost forgot what month it was! So often with the daily grind, I get into a routine rut. Such is adult life. Recent distractions I’ve found to help me survive reality: binging House MD on Hulu, learning how to play Magic: The Gathering (to appease my husband, so we can spend more time actually interacting, and also because the Bloomburrow set that was released last year is so darn cute!), and playing Killer Frequency on PC (decent point-and-click thriller).

Also, I’ve been so excited in anticipation of the Con I went to last weekend (my second ever, and first national one) that I lost track of what my life would be past that point in time. Highlights: I got autographs from Alex Kingston (River Song from Doctor Who), Harvey Guillén and Kayvan Novak (What We Do In The Shadows), Jonathan Frakes (Beyond Belief aka the Never Happened meme, also Star Trek), and Steven John Ward (Mihawk from the live action One Piece). I bought a new novel called CryptoZoo by JD Donnelly after seeing her panel on cryptids (she has really done her research). I bought 12 different loose leaf teas. I bought a functional parasol, and a Doctor Who themed tote bag with the phrase “This bag is bigger on the inside” and the 10th doctor on it. I spent money I did not have.

On to the poems! I went to a new (to me) website for my prompts this year. It’s too early to tell, honestly, but it’s looking to become my favorite. The prompts are more specific – and the more details I am directed to include > the more of a puzzle it becomes > the more interested I am > the better I write!

napowrimo.net

All of my poems this month will be about, or addressing (praying to?), the goddess Idunn/Iduna. My next project, if everything goes to plan, is a devotional to this little-attested Norse goddess who has stolen my heart.

Poem #1

Prompt from the website: “This year, our daily resources will take the form of online museum collections and exhibits. Hopefully, you’ll find these to be at least entertaining, and you may even be able to use some of what you see as inspiration for your poems – particularly given that our prompts this year will all be themed around music and art. Today’s resource is the Getty Museum’s online exhibit on the Florentine Codex, a 16^th-century sort of encyclopedia created in Mexico by a Franciscan friar and a group of Nahua elders, authors, and artists. All twelve books are presented page by page, with translations into English. You can also look at individual illustrations. It’s really quite rich and wonderful.

And now, to round out our first day, here’s our optional prompt! As with pretty much any discipline, music and art have their own vocabulary. Today, we challenge you to take inspiration from this glossary of musical terms, or this glossary of art terminology, and write a poem that uses a new-to-you word. For (imaginary) extra credit, work in a phrase from, or a reference to, the Florentine Codex.”

The Sun Calleth

"I am called; the sun calleth me."

So are the holy words 
of Quetzalcoatl 
in the Florentine Codex.

So are the honeyed words that drip
from my own tongue 
when I feel Iduna's light.

I know not her Norse.
English too crass
to converse,
I respond 
in the only other language I know.

"Me llamó. Llámame el sol."

I carve these words like earthworks:
geoglyphs so she knows I hear,
so she hears me.

I etch my voice,
I etch my sight,
I etch my taste
as one as
the hill figure,

the bride
of the Cerne Abbas Giant,
my mouth full of chalk
despite the honey I pour:

never good enough
for the bride of poetry,

but she smiles 
like a mother 
at her toddling infant's 
attempts to walk.

Poem #2

Prompt from the website: “Today’s daily resource is the online collection of the Georgia O’Keeffe museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The museum’s wide-ranging and eclectic collection includes not only at images of O’Keeffe’s famous paintings, but pictures of things that she owned, photos of her, etc. I’m not sure what particular use there is to me (or you) in knowing that Georgia O’Keeffe owned a McIntosh 240 6L6 Stero Tube Amplifier, but here is the very amplifier in question! Perhaps you’ll find more inspiring this painting of a clam and mussel shell nestled together, which reflects the blend of minimalism, spareness, and sensuality that is characteristic of her work.

And now for our daily prompt – optional, as always. Anne Carson is a Canadian poet and essayist known for her contemporary translations of Sappho and other ancient Greek writers. For example, consider this version of Sappho’s Fragment 58, to which Carson has added a modern song-title, enhancing the strange, time-defying quality of the translation. And just as many songs do, the poem directly addresses a person or group…. Taking Carson’s translation as an example, we challenge you to write a poem that directly addresses someone, and that includes a made-up word, an odd/unusual simile, a statement of “fact,” and something that seems out of place in time (like a Sonny & Cher song in a poem about a Greek myth).”

Alive Before We Die

Idunn, I hear you 
like a synthesizer in the crow's nest
of a docked ship preparing to embark,
spilling the shore's pine needles, 
vibrating joysap.
Death encroaches, and yet 
your pollinated apples give us a taste of immortality
through any years alive at all.
It's my first breath all over again. 
At the midhale I pause.
In this liminal space I smell your fragrance...
jasmine, juniper, or jonagold?
They bounce around, among, between, 
like your laughter as you climb
the mast to play electric guitar 
on the sails' ropes.