21 days

Another costuming poem as we count down to April.  This one is by J. Allyn Rosser, available at poetryfoundation.org.

Impromptu

BY J. ALLYN ROSSER

First there was Jim, clamping to my long black hair

             that nine-pound Cleopatra wig

             with nylon bands and bobbie pins.

Meanwhile I was on fire for Chad, who coached me

             a bit impatiently Tuesday nights

             on my Joan-of-Arc inflection.

Then Terence said I’d be perfect for the lounge-singer-

             turned-whore, and as it turned out

             that was a fairly easy gig.

Max signed me on soon after, claiming I was a natural

             for Eternally Aggrieved Girl,

             which in hindsight hurts me deeply.

So by the time you followed me back to the green room

             to wait in the hallway—whistling!—

             for my scrubbed face to emerge,

naturally I was wary, waiting for the script

             you never bothered to come up with.

             It was damned awkward sitting there,

nothing but milkshakes between us. Maybe, I thought,

             you’d assumed I was the one with a script.  

             Finally I decided to give Terence a call.

I didn’t like the way you looked at me so steadily

             with your chin resting on one fist,

             as if the table were a table, the boards

A floor. Listening there as if you meant it,

             as if something I could say were true, and every

             moment from now on would be my cue.

30 Poems in 30 Days 2016: Gearing up!

It's almost spring.  I've got an official countdown going on my Facebook page for that, but I'm also counting down to another "spring thing," which has become as much a sign of spring for me as tulips and Peeps:  NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month.  Once again this year, I intend to crank out 30 poems in 30 days.  This will be my fourth year participating.

In the past, I have (generally speaking) used the "official" daily prompts on the NaPoWriMo site (www.napowrimo.net) for my poems.  One year I combined them with a secondary prompt from another site, where each day I focused on a color.  For a couple of my NaPoWriMo adventures, I have taken a photograph to go with each poem (or written each poem as a response to a photograph...gray area...)

This year, I'm again challenging myself.  I will be using the prompts again this year (for the most part), and also  I plan for this year's poems  to (mostly) follow a theme:

THE POETRY OF COSTUME.

(Doesn't that look nice in bolded caps?)


One of my jobs is in theatrical costuming, which I love, and which makes me think about all kinds of stuff:  identity (both real and imagined), the concept of the mask, of hiding who we are, of becoming who we were meant to be, of otherness, of the insanity of marketing, of the history and weirdness of Halloween, of the way a costume transforms you, of the magic of theatre, and especially of the wisdom of actually gluing gold sequins to your face.  It's a veritable freakin' gold mine of material.  So that's this year's challenge.

Of course, I'm a poet, and poets lie, so I may not do EXACTLY what I said...but that's the plan!

So the countdown is on!  21 days until NaPoWriMo begins.  To get you in the mood, I reserve the right to post random poems about costuming, theatre, Halloween, and other marginally related topics until them, beginning now, with this piece by Michael Collier, available at www.poetryfoundation.org.

See you soon!

All Souls

By Michael Collier

A few of us—Hillary Clinton, Vlad Dracula,   

Oprah Winfrey, and Trotsky—peer through   

the kitchen window at a raccoon perched   

outside on a picnic table where it picks

over chips, veggies, olives, and a chunk of pâte.   

Behind us others crowd the hallway, many more

dance in the living room. Trotsky fusses with the bloody   

screwdriver puttied to her forehead.

Hillary Clinton, whose voice is the rumble

of a bowling ball, whose hands are hairy

to the third knuckle, lifts his rubber chin to announce,   

“What a perfect mask it has!” While the Count

whistling through his plastic fangs says, “Oh,   

and a nose like a chef.” Then one by one   

the other masks join in: “Tail of a gambler,”   

“a swashbuckler’s hips,” “feet of a cat burglar.”

Trotsky scratches herself beneath her skirt

and Hillary, whose lederhosen are so tight they form a codpiece,   

wraps his legs around Trotsky’s leg and humps like a dog.   

Dracula and Oprah, the married hosts, hold hands

and then let go. Meanwhile the raccoon squats on   

the gherkins, extracts pimentos from olives, and sniffs   

abandoned cups of beer. A ghoul in the living room   

turns the music up and the house becomes a drum.

The windows buzz. “Who do you love? Who do you love?”   

the singer sings. Our feathered arms, our stockinged legs.   

The intricate paws, the filleting tongue.

We love what we are; we love what we’ve become.