NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 21] - Names for a Thing That Refuses to Stay Named

NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 21]

Day Twenty-One

Wow! Three weeks down, and just a week and some change left to go in this year’s National/Global Poetry Writing Month.

Today’s daily featured participant is Haphazard’s Na/GloPoWriMo, where the response to Day Twenty’s mythic prompt involves a small brown owl. (And here I thought “morpork” was just a part of a silly name the late Sir Terry Pratchett made up for an imaginary city . . . though now I suppose the owl in the coat-of-arms ought to have been a clue).

Our resource for the day is this short essay by the poet Kimiko Hahn on senryu, the haiku’s comic cousin.

And here’s today’s prompt (optional, as always). In her poem, “Names and Nicknames,” Monika Kumar reminisces over various nicknames she has been given, the actual name her mother gave her, and the way both names and nicknames indicate a claim and an intimacy at once. In your poem for today, we challenge you to write your own poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given or, if you like, the name and nicknames for an animal, plant, or place. For example, I’ve always been amused at the fact that red trillium (a rather pretty wildflower that grows in the woods near my house) has several other common names, including the bizarre “stinking benjamin.” The plant grows very short and close to the ground, so I’ve never actually leaned over far enough to get a whiff and see how merited that sobriquet is!

Happy writing!

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Note: Day Twenty-One asked for names and nicknames, which is a dangerous prompt if you have spent any time thinking about who gets to name, and who is expected to answer. So, here's my offering for Day Twenty-One.

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Names for a Thing That Refuses to Stay Named

They named me first
for something that would sit still
long enough to be loved.

A small, correct name.
Mouth-sized.
Easy to call across a room
without raising suspicion.

(nothing moves if it is named properly)

Later, the nicknames came:
soft things, mostly,
stitched from habit
and the convenience of ownership.

Little one.
Good girl.
Don’t make a scene.

(inventory prefers smaller labels)

Little one.
Good girl.
Be easier to keep.

(easier to sort, easier to keep)

Each one a narrowing.
Each one a hand
resting just a moment too long
at the back of the neck.

—there are ways of guiding
that do not look like force.

There were other names, too—
the ones not spoken directly,
only implied in the way
a sentence bent around me.

Difficult.
Too much.
Unbecoming.

(unbecoming what?)
(unbecoming to whom?)

Strange how a name can follow you
even when no one is calling.

Stranger still
how it learns to answer for you.

—how it enters the mouth before you do.
—how it closes behind you like a gate.

I tried on others in secret.

Names that did not kneel.
Names that did not soften
at the edges when held.

Names that did not ask permission
to exist in a room.

(rooms have borders)
(borders have names)

Some of them broke in my mouth.
Some of them refused me.
Some of them stayed.

—I kept the ones that did not translate easily.
—I kept the ones that made the air resist me.

I am not sure which one is mine now.

The first one still lingers—
polite, patient,
waiting to be used again
like a key left under the mat.

(entry is always easier than exit)

But there are others now,
less obedient.

Names with teeth.
Names that do not come
when called.

(they will call anyway)
(they will keep calling)

If I answer at all,
it is slower than before.

As if I am deciding—
even now—
whether the voice
belongs to me.

—or to the record.
—or to the list.
—or to the land that keeps forgetting
what it was called before.

~ Oizys.