NaBloPoMo Blues...and Yellows

I guess it's obvious, but I seem to have decided (crazily, foolishly) to do NaBloPoMo this year. That means trying to post something every day this month, but I'm upping the ante and committing to writing a daily haiku or tanka, or other micropoem. Needing some sort of prompt to make the project a little more focused, I decided to try to have each one include a color word, or some observation proceeding from a noticed or felt color. So far, it's been going pretty well. Please let me know if one strikes you particularly, and why!

Another reason for the commitment is that I am just so damn busy right now, with professional work, Phoenicia projects, and lots of choir gigs,that it's been hard for me to write much here, though I've tried. A little poem once a day? No problem! -- or so I thought. Of course they often take a lot of work, but I can also work on them in my head as I walk, and manage to remember those few words.

Probably I chose "color" because I can feel it draining out of the landscape, out of the cityscape. Up here inthe north we're heading into the season of monochrome, when everyone puts away their bright clothing and spends the winter in black, grey, and brown, at least in terms of the outerwear in which we're all publicly cocooned for five months. I reluctantly got out my own black hooded coat the other day, but at least I always wear it with some sort of bright scarf...Already I find myself hungry for color and finding most of it in odd places, where someone has splashed a coat of bright paint, or hung up a flag on their balcony. With the leaves down, too, I find I see things that have been there all along, but obscured.

A lot of people find November depressing, but actually I've always liked it. I like the clarity and low angle of the light, and the way the colors that do exist are intensified against the often-grey skies. It's not cozy inside yet, and not bitter cold outside either, so I find I want to get out and walk, and see what's to be seen: today, a black and white cat high up on a yellow plexiglass balcony, watching a little black-and-white dog below. Fortunately, I'd already written my poem for the day!

Comments

[Rachel Barenblat]

I'm loving your micropoems, and I'm impressed with the intention of doing NaBloPoMo. I've been feeling thirsty for color, too. We still had some autumn leaves until the storm last week; now the trees and bare and the hills have taken on their muted autumn purple-grey. I'm gravitating toward my red boots and my red-and-turquoise car coat, just because I crave color! Anyway: I look forward to reading as you continue on this journey.

[marly youmans]

Always surprising how much color there is when one looks hard in late fall and winter. Love the leaf steps.

[maria]

I am really enjoying the micropoems. I know of the process of what it takes to write in this form daily. One year I posted a haiku a day for April, a shorter month :) And I am with you on appreciating the angle of light in November, precisely because of the way it intensifies color.

[Jan]

Ah, Beth. You are so disciplined. Love your writing, poems, photos, and art work. Great idea to focus on color. Looking forward to daily entries.

[Beth]

Thanks, friends. I'm remembering that it was much harder once when I wrote a whole string of haiku, with the self-imposed limitation of NO color-words at all!

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Always surprising colour much when a seems difficult in late autumn and winter. The leaf of love steps.

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I really enjoy micropoems. I know this process need to do write in this form daily. One year, I announced a day in April haiku, a short month:) and I with you appreciate Angle of light in November, it is because it intensifies color.