Day Two

Oooooh.  I'm in trouble.  Here I am breaking the rules again.  This is my Day Two post on Day Three.

I ask you.

What will I do next?

This is what we were supposed to do on Day Two:

Day 2

On April 2, 2011

Here we are on Day 2, and we seem to have made a great start! I buzzed all around the blogs yesterday, taking in poems like sunshine. And there’s plenty to take in — right now, more than 425 sites are on our participants’ list!

Here’s a third prompt for those of you who like to get ahead of the curve. This one is adapted from Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, a book my parents gave me when I was 14 or so and they noticed I was constantly scribbling things down. So here goes: Cesar Vallejo wrote a pretty famous poem that begins with him saying that he will die in Paris, in the rain, on a Thursday (different translations from the Spanish make it hard to quote precisely in English). So go ahead and write a poem predicting your own death — at night in Omaha at the Shell Station, in an underwater Mexican grotto after a dry spell. It’s less morbid than you think!

And for those of you trying to soak up the atmosphere, here’s your NaPoWriMo site of the day: Ada Limon’s blog, where you can read NaPoWriMo poems not only by Ada, but by Jennifer L. Knox and Jason Schneiderman. These three friends met during their MFA program at NYU, and have continued to come together to write poems each year during NaPoWriMo, long after their graduation, and the publication of a half dozen books between them. Take a look, and swing back tomorrow for another featured site!

My (cough) poem:

They say no one dies of old age any more.

It’s not terribly exciting.  Fashion dictates

Scandal

Tragedy

Tabloid exposés

Shrines on the side of the road.  Vigils.  A special on the news.

The gathering of enemies crying fake tears passing a lit candle.  Surely the hushed gossip on your profile means that you mattered.

As for me, I don’t mind dying old. Because I

Aim to live forever.

I will be the octogenarian with a belly button ring.

I will celebrate my hundredth birthday bungee jumping in Las Vegas.

When I am one hundred and twenty, I will learn how to pole dance on a merry-go-round.

No one will ever say anything nice or pass a candle for me because my life won’t be a tragedy.  I will inspire no one.

There will be No:

Gossip

Tears

Shenanigans for me.

My body will be worn down to a comfortable stub

The cockroaches who take over the earth will have to get up early to hang me on a shiny

Sunday Morning.