LesleyScoble.com

NaPoWriMo

Naporimo is a poetry challenge that’s run for twenty years. I’ve just heard of it. The challenge is to write a poem a day during the month of April. My first poem is my first reaction to the thought that I might like to join in.

Write a poem a day?
That’s a lot to ask.
I don’t know—
if I’m up to the task.

L.S. 1st April, 2023

Then I read the NaPoWriMo prompt guidelines for Day One.

Poets, Start your Engines.
They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but they never said you can’t try to write a poem based on a book cover — and that’s your challenge for today!

I look at the Public Domain Review website and select a book cover. The book cover is from The Slant Book (1910) by Peter Newell. I thought I might be able to find an angle for a poem from this cover (pun intended).

The Slanted Hill

The Slanted Hill

There was a little old woman who trudged weary up the hill
The slope was long and ever so steep
Her muscles ached, she felt teary and ill 
She wanted to get home to her bed for a sleep

Her load of potatoes weighed a ton on her back
(It wasn’t much fun, alas and alack!)
She moved very slow up the high slanted track
Groaning a bit, sighing a sigh, heaving her sack.
Her legs creak in pain (and so did her back)

Then, she tripped on a rock (which gave her a shock) 
She gasped a curse and with a vexed voice exclaimed, “Oh bother!”
Her left foot was wounded and maimed (but it’s OK, she’d got another)
Then horror of horrors and god forbid
One spud after another tumbled and slid—
Rolling, rolling out of the sack,
Her hands clasped her face in frustration and angst (and pain in her neck)
The spuds were bouncing against their jackets—Oh, heck!
Following one another like a potato train,
all the way back down to the bottom of the slanted hill again
.
She chased after them as fast as she could
(she’d paid a lot for them, so of course, she would)


Lesley Scoble, April, 2023

NOTES
You can view a virtual copy of The Slant Book by Peter Newell here

Thanks
My thanks to NaPoWriMo for the April Write a Poem a Day Challenge. I fear I may fall by the wayside of this challenge, as I can’t seem to write a poem without enough thinking time—or wanting to draw an illustration for it! Illustrations can take too much time.

I may have another go at the Day Two Challenge, as it seems fascinating. Whether I can write it in a day remains to be seen! 
To write and publish in the same day might be a little harder.