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Poetry Prompts

September Visual Poetry Prompt

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Our very own JeanMarie Olivieri found this giant sculpture in Graham, North Carolina. It was created by Seward Johnson and donated to assist Alamance Arts in bring art to Alamance County. Post your ekphrastic reaction in the comments below.

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About Bartholomew Barker

Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in the Triangle region of North Carolina where he has hosted a monthly feedback workshop for more than decade. His first poetry collection, Wednesday Night Regular, written in and about strip clubs, was published in 2013. His second, Milkshakes and Chilidogs, a chapbook of food inspired poetry was served in 2017. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he lives and writes poetry.

Discussion

37 thoughts on “September Visual Poetry Prompt”

  1. Judy Whisnant's avatar

    This sculpture prompted me to finish a poem I’d started several years ago. This is my first encounter with Living Poetry, (and all technology?), so I’m not even sure how to post it.
    judy
    judywhisnantlaw@gmail.com

    Liked by 2 people

    Posted by Judy Whisnant | September 6, 2021, 10:55 AM
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  2. S. Page's avatar

    All You Need Is

    We got married and found
    the difficulty of happily ever after.
    It was a burden we forced
    into an accomplishment.

    We planted fruit trees
    scraped and saved and wiped the floor.
    We changed the babies,
    they changed us.

    We grew wise enough to begin to doubt
    the benefit of clinging to the past,
    yet nurtured each pleasant feeling,
    for without it, what is left?

    Yet feelings seemed to alter
    become adjustable, changeable,
    until grown into
    their own antithesis, with time.

    Pulled forward against our wills
    fighting to go against the flow,
    we were half ashamed of each loss of glee.
    The current widened into solitude.

    We framed a picture of a colorful past,
    the pixels don’t include the pain,
    it looks like all went well and we were brave.
    Emptiness reverberates.

    You may coddle yourself telling tales
    fit for a babe,
    yet what you get for sacrifice is: nothing.
    And a vast plain of it.

    For living right: a memory,
    irrelevant
    and out of time,
    raveling at the edges.

    Liked by 3 people

    Posted by S. Page | September 6, 2021, 2:27 PM
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  3. Cassa Bassa's avatar

    A Moment of Unity

    There is a victory!
    We celebrate with a kiss
    where our happy hormones mash into
    a song of joy.
    My salty lips touch yours
    on a crowded square.
    My lady, we share a moment
    in history beyond just you and me.
    Shhhh, don’t tell me your name,
    let’s kiss deeper into the Summer heat.

    Liked by 2 people

    Posted by Cassa Bassa | September 7, 2021, 9:30 AM
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  5. Gypsie-Ami Offenbacher-Ferris's avatar

    Profoundly Insignificant

    Is it that I know you?
    Uniformed man holding me so
    You and yours have I met
    in years of famine
    Years of War.

    Is it joy that brought you here?
    This regalia upon your body
    with stripes on your shoulders
    Stars on your shirt
    Profoundly Insignificant

    In seventy-six years have we aged not?
    War still rages around us
    That strong arm beneath your uniform
    supporting white collared laborers
    The blue collared and the no collared

    Must the price for freedom always
    bend human morality?

    Liked by 2 people

    Posted by GypsieWolf2014 | September 7, 2021, 5:40 PM
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  7. Catherine Penafiel's avatar

    Iconic image
    National myth
    Rorschach test
    How will the future interpret this moment?

    Late again. I had to look up Ekphrastic. vocabulary building exercise as well as a left brain stretch

    Liked by 2 people

    Posted by Catherine Penafiel | September 10, 2021, 12:09 PM
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  8. Judy Whisnant's avatar

    Daddy at Brevard and Waiting for Mama

    The earth tickled him so.
    How his green heart must have lurched when he left
    That hamlet in the hills
    And the Blue Ridge encountered him
    Like a choir meeting Jesus.
    Red Bob.
    Too young, he’d hopped a ride with his big brother,
    Gnawed his way into Brevard,
    Milked cows for tuition,
    Did handstands on the roof,
    Made best friends with Billy Medford
    Who raised dahlias.

    Meanwhile the preacher’s daughter
    Had to start menstruation,
    Finish high school,
    Read Antoine de Saint-Exupery–

    Can we say luckily a war was raging?
    And Daddy donned his sailor blues,
    Sunk submarines,
    Danced tarantellas in Palarmo, Sicily.

    Until he finally could come home and seize her,
    Seize the day he’d stored so long ago,
    When Mama was 14 and he pitched hay at her,
    With a store-bought cake for her birthday.

    Liked by 1 person

    Posted by Judy Whisnant | September 10, 2021, 12:16 PM
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  9. Lisa Tomey-Zonneveld's avatar

    He kissed her before the war began.
    Sitting on a bench in New York,
    courting the nurse,
    and they kissed.

    Off to the shipyards he returned
    to finish the battleship.
    Years later
    with an Alzheimer’s affected brain
    he still remembered her name.

    She was not waiting for him
    at the launch
    or the return
    but he kissed her
    through another’s lips
    but he kissed her
    and I have no doubt
    both their lips warmed
    at the thought.

    My mother was a wonderful woman
    she was not a nurse
    but could she ever kiss
    that’s what daddy said.

    Liked by 2 people

    Posted by Lisa Tomey | September 13, 2021, 7:07 AM
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