Day twenty-eight. Only three more days.  This is when you realize that Poem-A-Day challenges are hard. “Yes, show up ev’day. Write a poem …. didn’t I just write one ye’day. I’ve run out of words to say. My family has forgotten what I look like.  I ‘z go stuff to do.”

And yet, if you listen to your muse, you’ll find she’s happier than she has been in a long while. Now that you have stopped listening to your inner critic – started listening to her, you will find she has much more to say today.

For my personal Poem A Day Challenge , today’s PAD is … wary.

Robert Lee Brewer’s AprPAD challenge prompt is smell.

NaPoWriMo‘s participant is little learner.  The featured poet today is poet Kazim Ali, co-founder of Nightboat Books and author of three books of poetry.  NaPoWriMo’s prompt for today is a challenge you to write a poem using Skeltonic verse (or tumbling verse).  That  is a poem thatwas pioneered by John Skelton, a fifteenth-century English poet. Skeltonic verse features short stanzas with irregular meter, using only two strong stresses per line (otherwise know as “dipodic” or “two-footed” verse). The lines rhyme without a proscribed rhyme scheme. See the NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo site for a good example or check out  this link to Poetry Forms.

Poets&Writers is asking that today’s poem uses a clichéd phrase (“fit as a fiddle,” “think out of the box,” “running on empty,” etc.) and turns it around. Give it a new meaning .

The Poetry School‘s NaPoWriMo group today suggests that you write a haiku. But to be loose with it; don’t worry about the syllables and focus on the juxtaposition of two ideas or images  and the cutting word. See their prompt page for a more detailed prompt.

Let me shift gears here back into CC Willow – something I have been doing continously this week.  Salem’s Art Walk is tonight, AKA Final Friday Art Walk. My friends Anna C. & Russ (Star Wars fans, aren’t we all) have set this month’s theme as “It’s a Trap” & then promptly ordered 20-ish stormtrooper heads, handing them out to Salem artists.  I’ve been watching them coming back into Prisms Gallery; the Salem art community taken liberties! One of my favs is a steampunk theme done by friend Terra – I think Time Lord. Another is a lamp done by Christy Wood of Runway Crafts. (Before opening Runway, Christy often painted sets for Brush Creek Playhouse productions; amazing lady!)

I, as noted on Tuesday, came late to the fun. And although I just brought my helmet home Monday, I had been planning the design since February and so, Thursday morning had a completed Helmet to turn in. My thought – What if a storm trooper’s helmet had been left a long time ago in the Pacific NW forests ? Maybe by space-faring Ewoks,. Or maybe by a longtime Empire/Rebel war. The movie did say “a long, long time ago”.  I added it to the growing collection, setting it on a podium next to Jonathon’s (Create-A-Memory) “Garden Wars”.  Come check it out; the Group project is always housed at Prism’s Gallery in The Reed’s Underground.

My Art Walk display,  at Create A Memory Studio this time, is almost complete. Jonathon helped me yesterday with it. I do have some new pendants added for sale, based on imagees from my Parrrot Tulip and my Iris paintings. And this morning I’m getting more cards printed and packaged.

Two of my pieces will additionally be on display at Russ & Anna D’s shop Parallel Worlds in The Reed Underground. We were chatting as I was taking down my April show at Prisms and he requested two for his red gallery wall.  It’s a great little indie store – I picked up some awesome throwing knives there in January! Do go in there! Both Anna D & He have some amazing work of their own on the wall, some collaborations, and work from other artists as well. Judging for the pieces they have gathered – that red wall is going to be amazing.

I understand that this Art Work has grown quite a bit & really has grown into quite an event. Saying something – since it is just 4 months old. It seems my buddies at Artists in Action have discovered it (Janet & I talking it up at this month’s meeting may have something to do with it) and now the walls above in the Salem Art’s Building are burgeoning.

Well – gotta run – or in my condition today, limp – along. Hope to see you at tonight’s shenanagins. I will be handing at Create A Memory – either with my easel or my sketch pad.