NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 7] - Count It Out // Girls on the Pavement // Girls’ Game for Bad Weather

NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 7]

Day Seven

Welcome back, all — we’ve now hit the one-week mark in this year’s National/Global Poetry Writing Month!

Also, thanks for your patience as we work through the continued over-enthusiasm of our Disqus comment-moderating system. We’re trying to keep on top of when it flag comments as spam (on bases that defy understanding), and flagging affected commenters as “trusted users” accordingly.

Our featured participant for the day is Veronica Zundel, whose response to Day Six’s slightly-surreal promp takes us through a list of lovely-sounding plants, with a casual glance at a “hot French gardener.” Ooh-la-la!

Today, our resource is the Ode & Psyche podcast from the Ruth Stone House, a nonprofit that celebrates the legacy of the Vermont poet Ruth Stone. Hosted by Ruth Stone’s granddaughter, the poet Bianca Stone, the podcast features interviews with poets, close readings of poems, and explorations of how poetry is made and moves.

Finally, here’s today’s prompt — optional, as always. In her poem, “Front Yard Rhyme,” Cecily Parks evokes the sing-songy beats that accompany girls’ clapping games, and jump-rope and skipping rhymes. Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that emulates these songs – something to snap, clap, and jump around to.

Happy writing!

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Note: I wrote two poems. The first, Count It Out, is a chant that sounds playful on the surface but is really about something deeper and darker, what gets passed down. The second, Girls on the Pavement, begins like a proper skipping rhyme and then goes slightly crooked. It is more playful, but with a sting.

Count It Out

One for the bruise and two for the blame,
three for the child with the mother’s name,
four for the door that won’t stay shut,
five for the word that got stuck in the gut.

Miss April skipping through a field of flame,
clap for the rain and snap for the heat,
girls in the driveway, dust on their feet,
count out the names that nobody keeps.

Six for the spoon in the sink gone cold,
seven for stories nobody told,
eight for the girls who learn too fast,
nine for the future dressed like the past.

Clap once, clap twice, turn around slow,
what they won’t name is the thing we know.
Skip once, skip twice, heel and toe:
where does the sorrowed daughter go?

Ten for the rage in the hem of the dress,
eleven for “quiet,” twelve for “yes,”
thirteen for all that was handed down,
stitched in a ribbon, hidden in a crown.

Clap once, clap twice, don’t miss the beat,
grief wears ribbons and sensible feet.
Jump once, jump twice, don’t look below:
the ground remembers more than we know.

~ Oizys.

Girls on the Pavement

Miss Mary Mack in a marigold hat,
who told you this and who told you that?
Salt in the teacup, ash in the air,
every little darling learns how to stare.

Clap to the left and clap to the right,
smile in the morning, whisper at night,
jump over cracks and don’t break rank,
wave to the river and don’t ask thanks.

Red shoe, blue shoe, which one fits?
One for the gossip and two for the slits
cut in the story, neat and small,
who gets remembered? Not us all.

Still we skip and still we sing,
cheap gold halo, broken string,
count to ten and start again,
girls make music out of pain.

~ Oizys.

Update: I ended up adding another poem. Those lines would not leave my head, and with so many people across the world suffering, they kept returning with greater force. After reading several poems here that were grappling with similar grief and urgency, I felt compelled to let that rhythm carry me into another response to the prompt.

Girls’ Game for Bad Weather

Miss April said hush now,
button your shoe,
when the sky starts arguing
here’s what you do.

Clap once for the cupboard,
twice for the floor,
if the windows start shaking
don’t ask what for.

Duck, duck, don’t look up.
Clap on “sirens,” jump on “boom.”
Advice spoken like a game,
but really survival training in the room.

Mother stirring lentils while checking headlines,
bangles clinking like alarms,
pressure cooker, window latch, school shoes, curtains, passport, roof—
the whole house learning to keep its arms.

Girls in the courtyard, dust on their knees,
clapping out warnings instead of sweet pleas.
Don’t step on the crack,
don’t look at the screen,
the grown-ups say “tension,”
they never mean clean.

Clap once, clap twice, under the door.
Skip once, skip twice, down to the floor.
Don’t miss the beat, don’t miss the sign.
Count to ten and stand in line.

Girls taught to sit straight, braid hair, lower voice,
and also know where to hide.
Skipping-rope chant colliding with the fact
that girls are always already being trained for danger inside.

The child learning emergency instructions
the way other children learn rhymes:
when to duck, what to carry,
which fear belongs to which times.

Bangles. Headlines. Breath held still.
Lentils thickening softly on the stove.
Outside, the weather rehearses one thing.
Inside, the body is told another to know.

Clap once, clap twice, under the door.
Skip once, skip twice, down to the floor.
Don’t miss the beat, don’t miss the sign.
Count to ten and stand in line.

And if anyone asks what game this is,
say weather, say April, say girls at play,
because war comes first as household habit
before it ever learns its proper name.

~ Oizys.