05 Apr
05Apr

shaped like mini Quasimodos, multi-coloured

flexible and hardy as rubber balls

onward, they bounce into each other 

the children jounce loudly, they call

to one another, spilling in sprints

they occupy all the playground corners

with jocular songs and slapping feet 


names are called in sweetened tongues

coloured red and blue, artificial berries

sisters, brothers, mamas and dads

during the day are occupied away

grandparents they sometimes see

age wears the best bright fabrics

reds and greens, bright pinks and yellow 


at the last push of an electric bell

they scramble crayons and books to shelves

fold aprons and wash off poster paints

take their satchels on their backs 

and run to the reception and waiting room

stay while playing, where parents collect

sons and daughters, until an empty school 


Saffron – 5th April 2021

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Napowrimo Prompt Day 5:

This prompt challenges you to find a poem, and then write a new poem that has the shape of the original, and in which every line starts with the first letter of the corresponding line in the original poem. If I used Roethke’s poem as my model, for example, the first line would start with “I,” the second line with “W,” and the third line with “A.” And I would try to make all my lines neither super-short nor overlong, but have about ten syllables. I would also have my poem take the form of four, seven-line stanzas. I have found this prompt particularly inspiring when I use a base poem that mixes long and short lines, or stanzas of different lengths. Any poem will do as a jumping-off point, but if you’re having trouble finding one, perhaps you might consider Mary Szybist’s "We Think We Do Not Have Medieval Eyes” or for something shorter, Natalie Shapero’s "Pennsylvania.”


Poem chosen: 

"Old Ladies' Home" - by Sylvia Plath

Sharded in black, like beetles,

Frail as antique earthenwear

One breath might shiver to bits,

The old women creep out here

To sun on the rocks or prop

Themselves up against the wall

Whose stones keep a little heat.


Needles knit in a bird-beaked

Counterpoint to their voices:

Sons, daughters, daughters and sons,

Distant and cold as photos,

Grandchildren nobody knows.

Age wears the best black fabric

Rust-red or green as lichens.


At owl-call the old ghosts flock

To hustle them off the lawn.

From beds boxed-in like coffins

The bonneted ladies grin.

And Death, that bald-head buzzard,

Stalls in halls where the lamp wick

Shortens with each breath drawn.

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