Category: NaPoWriMo 2016

My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, Poetry1 Comment

Why It Must Come

Charlotte Hamrick

“…poetry isn’t revolution but a way of knowing why it must come.” —Adrienne Rich, “Dreamwood” Why It Must Come (After Adrienne Rich) The one great choice is made instinctively, there is no manual no set of directions. The hand-me-down desk has no typewriter or even a pen and paper. The poet needs none of it. Possibilities birth in the brain, its crevices filled with currents and hot-air balloons flying with ideas. The poem is the possibility of a myriad of choices. To create the poem is the one great choice. ***** So it’s the last day of National Poetry Month … Continue reading Why It Must Come

Found Poetry, My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, PoetryLeave a comment

Bodies of a More Complicated Nature

Charlotte Hamrick

The small parallelipipeds traversed on the hairs of leaves, its casual adventitious body roughening the surface while a hundred armed mites rang’d, breaking one another’s necks. Smutty daubings, engraved by furrows and holes, are viewed as curious writing. Light and shadows are watched through the microscope where the least spot is as big as the Earth itself. ***** Today’s prompt courtesy of Beth Ayer on Found Poetry Review: “In the spirit of heading into darkness after all things unseeable and obscure, write a poem using a text that is inexplicable to you. Could be quantum physics, thermodynamics, mathematics, aeronautical engineering … Continue reading Bodies of a More Complicated Nature

Books, Found Poetry, My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, Photography, Poetry3 Comments

They Were All There, Gleaming

Charlotte Hamrick

Without him, a faint image became clearer. The curtain hanging before my eyes, flat and cold, removed. Over me, the jeweled colors appear brighter than they were. ***** So, I worked my own prompt today, my version of an erasure poem. Erasure poems, to me, are too messy – you know, all that black marker. So I just take a block of text and search for words and phrases  and either underline or write them down as I go. This poem was derived from the following paragraph in The Girl With the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (Penguin Books, 1999) … Continue reading They Were All There, Gleaming

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Of Little Hands and Feet

Charlotte Hamrick

What wasn’t: Deliverance Baptismal Secular Miracle A Happy Childhood A Drowning Scene What was: A Burning Resuscitation Conversion A Sanctuary The Other Side of Drowning ***** Prompt courtesy of Greg Santos on Found Poetry Review. Greg suggested several prompts and I settled on a Table of Contents poem which ended up a list poem. My source: The Chronology of Water, Yuknavich, Lidia, Hawthorne Books, 2011. Btw, this is an astounding book. I wrote about it here Continue reading Of Little Hands and Feet

My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, Poetry, Poets, Pop Culture2 Comments

Thank You for a Funky Time

Charlotte Hamrick

Pick a day when the sunlight dances on little red Corvettes and snow in April, when elevators reach a higher floor and you can always see the sun. Choose a day that incites a parade so purple the cells in your body tingle like pop rocks and guitars exploding, feeling proud in the light of this power. Give the world all your extra time and kiss this parade we call life where he taught us to love and laugh and celebrate in purple rain and stars that fall from the sky. *****   Prompt courtesy of Found Poetry Review: Take an erasure … Continue reading Thank You for a Funky Time

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For Joy

Charlotte Hamrick

I never expected to make the journey that pulls you toward helplessness and illness and demands you step up. The journey that structures your life around spoon feedings during Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune and whatever else crawls across the tv while you’re coaxing your loved one to eat. It was a journey of patience and perseverance, of constant advocacy for excellence of care, of schedules and massages, hair brushing and body-turning. It was a journey of acceptance for the inevitable but without a thought of giving up. It was a journey I was honored to travel, one in which I … Continue reading For Joy

NaPoWriMo 2016, Poetry2 Comments

Forgotten Woman

Charlotte Hamrick

If I died alone in a nursing home would anyone notice or would I be just another old lady leaving a bed for another old lady, just another pair of hands to fold over a sunken chest, the heart beneath long ago stilled by loneliness. If I died alone in a nursing home would my spirit have been strengthened by endurance and faith or would sweet relief from long days of bed sores and liquid feedings, from hurried and impatient caregivers be welcomed. If I died alone in a nursing home would anything that went before even matter. ***** Writing … Continue reading Forgotten Woman

My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, Photography, Poetry4 Comments

The Poet is Highjacked from National Poetry Month

Charlotte Hamrick

  It’s your fault, New York. You grabbed me by the heart and shook out all the doubts, all the fears, all the hurts and disappointments. You ran your fingers around my brain, pulled out all the murky stuff and replaced it with the brightness of yellow taxis streaking down the avenues, the open-faced grins of locals walking dogs, the clinking glasses and laughter of after-work drinks, children running through spring kissed grass in Central Park. You, New York, you are the reason I forgot about National Poetry Month and didn’t write a single poem for nine days because you … Continue reading The Poet is Highjacked from National Poetry Month

My Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2016, New Orleans, Pets, Photography, Poetry1 Comment

In the Garden

Charlotte Hamrick

  Morning sunshine backlights the ferns giving them a glowing radiance. Mockingbirds swoop and hop over the garden from wire to tree in a spring mating dance, oblivious to the full feeder where other birds feast. A slight breeze rustles the bamboo like slippered feet crossing the floor and the wind-chime offers a solitary ding from time to time. I knew this morning was perfect when the dogs awoke me with kisses and eagerly bound  down the stairs, tails waving like flags. **** NaPoMo prompt courtesy of This is not a Literary Journal:  “Go outside, sit and observe. Make a … Continue reading In the Garden