NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 26] - Ars Poetica for a Room That Keeps Interrupting

NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 26]

Day Twenty-Six

Hello, everyone, and welcome back for Day Twenty-Six of National/Global Poetry Writing Month.

Today, our featured participant is Jay Siegmann, whose response to Day 25’s rather complex prompt bring us metaphors for metaphor itself.

Our resource for the day is the Commonplace podcast, which provides you with oodles of interviews with contemporary poets, as well as explorations of specific themes and books.

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). The Latin phrase ars poetica means “the art of poetry.” It’s been a tradition going all the way back to Horace for poets to write poems that lay out – whether explicitly or obliquely – some statement about why the poet writes, or what they think poetry is. Here’s a very recent example, another that I had to study in school, and a very long, witty ars poetica by Alexander Pope. Today, we challenge you to write your own ars poetica, giving the reader some insight into what keeps you writing poetry, or what you think poetry should do.

Happy writing!

-

Note: Day Twenty-Six asked for an ars poetica: a poem about poetry, why one writes, or what one thinks poetry should do. So, naturally, the prompt went straight for the poet’s existential throat: why are we here, what is language doing, and must the notebook be this dramatic about it? Very casual. Just the poet’s version of “what is the meaning of life?” before breakfast. Anyway. I do not think poetry saves the world. I distrust that kind of sentence. But I do think poetry can reduce the amount of falsehood passing through a life. It can keep a record. It can point toward material action. It can refuse deadness. So here is my offering for Day Twenty-Six.

-

Ars Poetica for a Room That Keeps Interrupting

I do not write
because language is holy.

Please.
Language has been used
to make rent agreements,
family WhatsApp messages,
performance reviews,
marriage biodatas,
eviction notices,
border maps,
police reports,
citizenship registers,
medical certificates,
school punishments,
court orders,
to level dialects until every village sounds employable,
rename rivers,
discipline accents,
flatten tongues,
lynch minorities,
degrade women,
misgender the living,
sanitize massacres,
translate occupation into security,
translate hunger into policy failure,
translate cruelty into procedure,
and write apology emails
that apologise for nothing.

I know better than to trust a sentence 
just because it stands upright.
I write because the room keeps 
editing me without permission.

Because the bed remembers every woman 
who mistook endurance for character.
Because the window keeps pretending 
it is only a window, 
when all day it has been smuggling in 
heat, dust, neighbours, sirens, birds, 
the country’s latest cruelty, and 
one thin strip of sky that refuses to explain itself.

I write because my body files complaints 
in languages my mouth cannot yet afford.

The stomach burns.
The jaw locks.
The ribs rearrange
their small furniture.
The skin says:
something happened here.

And the mind, that overstaffed ministry,
opens ten departments to investigate one feeling
and still misplaces the file.

My poetry is not therapy.
Therapy has invoices.

My poetry is not revolution.
Revolution would require better logistics,
more courage, and probably a group chat
I have not been added to.

My poetry is not prayer either,
though sometimes, it kneels by accident.

Mostly,
poetry is the act
of refusing
to let the wrong thing
become normal
inside me.

A small refusal. Embarrassingly small.
A cup moved from one table to another.
A sentence cleaned until it shows where the blood was.
A joke placed carefully beside the wound
so the wound does not start thinking it is royalty.

I write because I am frightened of becoming fluent
in the language of those who taught me silence with such domestic patience.

I write because love does not prevent estrangement.

I write because the family is the first state,
and I am still learning how to defect without starving.

I write because somewhere a country is being translated into rubble,
and here, in this room, light lies down on the floor as if it has no politics.

I write because that is obscene.

I write because beauty arrives without a plan
and I do not forgive it, but I do record the visit.

I write because poems do not feed people.

This is important.

Poems do not stop bombs,
pay salaries,
reverse laws,
return friends,
open locked clinics,
protect people,
dismantle systems,
return motherlands,
or teach mothers
how to rest.

But a poem can point to the bread.
A poem can say: there, that hunger, do not decorate it.
A poem can say: send money if you can.
A poem can say: do not call this elsewhere.
A poem can say: this wound has an address.

Maybe that is all.

Maybe my poetry is not a door, not a key, not even a window.

Maybe it is only the scratch on the glass
where someone, trapped here before me,
tested the surface and left proof
that the room was not always obeyed.

I write to add one more scratch. Not escape. Not yet.

Just evidence
that I touched the pane
and found it breakable.

~ Oizys.

After-note: Since today’s poem is about what poetry can and cannot do, I wanted to leave this here: Coastal Lines Press / Zines from Gaza, a collective of writers in Gaza publishing independent booklets of poetry, essays, and testimonies. Their zines carry stories of survival, resistance, and hope, and proceeds from every zine directly fund essential supplies for families under siege. I still do not think poems stop bombs. Poems do not feed people by themselves. I distrust that romance. But poems can refuse erasure. They can (help!) travel where bodies are trapped. They can point toward bread, witness, and survival. So go! Buy a copy. Or, volunteer with your amazing creative skills!