NovPoWriMo 2025

What is NovPoWriMo?

April has NaPoWriMo. November has always been restless, waiting. So I am claiming it: NovPoWriMo: my self-made challenge to write a poem every day for 30 days through November 2025. The poems will be raw, lyrical, serious. Not polished jewels, but living fragments of a month stitched together in verse.

How It Works

I’ll post one poem each day (or close... some days will be grace days, if life demands it). Every poem will carry the label #NovPoWriMo 2025. You can click that label to binge-read the whole journey. If anyone wants to join in, you’re welcome. Write your own poems, drop your links in the comments, or take a banner from below and display it on your blog. This is a personal challenge first, but an open circle if others wander in.

Prompts (a Taste?)

I’ll be using sparks and themes to keep the words flowing. Some are already waiting: fog, waiting for a bus, longing, an erasure poem from the news. The full list of prompts will be shared here by October 25, but I’ll share glimpses, ideas, thought processes, research notes here and there.

Banners / Badges
Feel free to grab these and display on your blog if you’re joining in.

Daily Index

A poem each day, linked below as November unfolds:

Day 1 –

Day 2 –

Day 3 –

…

Day 30 –

(By the end of the month, this will be a stitched-together map of the whole journey.)

Fellow NovPoWriMo Voices

If anyone else takes part, I’ll add their blogs and poems here. A little link-up list of community voices if it ever becomes commune.

After November
By the end of November, I’ll update this page with reflection post (“How the first NovPoWriMo was”) and gather all the poems in one collected index. For now, this page will be the hub: the banners, the poems, the trail.

DAY 1. Palimpsest of Self

"Palimpsest of Self" uses the concept of a palimpsest—a manuscript with original text partially erased and rewritten over, leaving faint traces of the old—to describe the self as a multifaceted and layered entity. It suggests that our experiences, memories, and identities are continuously written, erased, and rewritten, creating a complex, multi-layered "self" where earlier versions of who we are remain present as subtle or distorted imprints. This metaphor is applied in various contexts, including art, literature, and even discussions of identity and memory, to explore how past experiences shape our present understanding of ourselves. Just as a palimpsest has layers of text, a "palimpsest of self" implies that our identity is not static but a continuous accumulation of experiences, memories, and influences. New experiences can overlay and alter older ones, similar to how writing is erased from a palimpsest. This isn't a complete loss of the past but a transformation, where traces of what was written before remain, sometimes subtly, influencing the new text.

As a metaphor, “palimpsest” travels well across literature and memory studies. Scholars have used “palimpsest” to think about how texts and selves layer over time: Gérard Genette’s classic Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree frames later writing as rewriting that carries prior texts within it theorizing how any new text asks us to remember earlier ones: hypertext layered on hypotext. Sarah Dillon’s The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory offers the first full genealogy of the metaphor and calls its structure “involuted,” illuminating how traces persist beneath overwriting. Andreas Huyssen’s Present Pasts describes cities themselves as “urban palimpsests,” where new surfaces never entirely erase prior histories. The figure also runs through older essays on mind and memory. Thomas De Quincey famously calls the brain a “natural and mighty palimpsest,” and Freud’s Mystic Writing-Pad analogy (picked up by Derrida) imagines perception as layered inscription. If you want literal parchment: see the Archimedes Palimpsest (a medieval prayerbook overwritten on treatises by Archimedes) and major biblical and Qur’anic palimpsests like Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus and the Sana’a palimpsest being visible proof that texts are scraped and written over, yet still legible underneath.

For a poetics edge, Poetry Foundation's blog uses “multi-layered record,” to define palimpsest in poetics [a definition that tracks cleanly with how we’re using it here], and there’s an archival “Palimpsest” poem by Roger Shattuck in Poetry magazine (September 1981) if you like seeing how the word lives on the page. 

So, why are we doing this? The constraint forces surprising re-seeing of your own poem (a literal palimpsest).

How can we do this? Pick an old poem of yours (ideally one with a pulse you still recognize). Keep the number of lines, the approximate line lengths, punctuation, line breaks, the title. Only replace the nouns: proper nouns, common nouns, collective nouns—whatever names a thing. Keep verbs, pronouns, and connective tissue intact. Title stays the same.

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• keep the original first and last noun untouched (anchors)
• allow yourself exactly three new nouns that didn’t exist in your life when the original was written (pressure point)
• show two layers by striking through one noun per stanza (the ghost peeks through)

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• add one extremely short “gloss” after two or three lines set off by brackets or a superscript number like a scribe’s note, keep it under five words..
• pick one noun you refuse to replace and strike it once (the scraped word showing through).
• after the poem, add a single-line “hashiya” (comment) that contradicts or complicates the poem, in italics.

Post the new poem with the original title. If you want, put a one-line note at the end: “Palimpsest after [year]”.

DAY 2. Errata Sonnet

What are errata? In publishing, an erratum (singular) or errata (list) is a set of post-print corrections bound in or issued separately. We start by mimicking the dry book-history texture. And, what is volta? The volta is the "turn" in a sonnet, marking a shift in thought, emotion, or argument, often signaled by words like "but" or "yet". In a Petrarchan sonnet, the volta occurs between the octave (first eight lines) and the sestet (last six lines). In a Shakespearean sonnet, it typically happens between the 12th and 13th lines, or just before the final couplet.

Kevin Young, “Errata” is a tour-de-force of misprints/malaprops as music which shows how error can be the engine. Michael Donaghy, “Erratum”, though not a single “errata poem,” but the title points to craft that’s precise, revision-aware, and bookish with can be a very useful tonal compass for us.

So, why are we doing this? A sonnet compiled from errata, the little correction notes printed after books go to press. Fourteen lines of corrections to a life/text. The turn (volta) arrives when a “correction” can’t be corrected. Errata are tiny apologies to the reader; they acknowledge the layered self you opened in Day 1. We correct spellings, dates, names until we hit a thing that won’t yield to ink. 

How can we do this? Write 14 lines that look like errata from the back of a book. Each line should include a brief citation and a correction. Examples:

• p. 7, l. 3 — for “winter” read “late rain.”
• p. 12 — “you left” should read “you were already gone.”

Use a volta at or around line 9: a correction that can’t be corrected (logic collapses, memory resists). Keep the voice dry, precise, bookish: no explanation, just adjustments. 

Optional meter: keep a light iambic pressure if you enjoy it, but music is secondary to form. But, there are some required elements (bake these in):

• Include one [sic].
• Include one strikethrough (a word visibly “withdrawn”).
• Include one italicized aside (set like this)—a typesetter’s whisper.
• End with a final line that corrects the title or date of the poem itself.

How to actually do it? Let's uncomplicate [before we lose interest...] Make a tiny inventory of factuals you’d be tempted to fix: a date, a place, a word someone used for you. Draft 6–8 straightforward corrections first (lines 1–8). Draft 4–5 lines where grammar can’t fix what’s wrong (lines 9–13). Land on a last line that edits the poem’s own metadata like title, author, or year.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

p. 3, l. 1 — for “dawn” read “streetlight still on.”

p. 5, l. 9 — delete “forever”; insert “for a season.”

p. 7 — name “M.” should read “M——.”

p. 12, l. 4 — “threshold” to read “turnstile.”

p. 14 — replace “promise” with “receipt.”

p. 18, l. 2 — “home” [sic].

p. 21 — “ocean” should read “reservoir.”

p. 26, l. 6 — strike “stillness”; set “pause.”

p. 30 — there is no way to change this.

p. 31, l. 5 — the line breaks itself (leave as is).

p. 33 — “we” to read “I,” then “I,” then “I.”

p. 34, l. 2 — punctuation fails; keep the breath.

p. 36 — the absence was typeset correctly.

Colophon — for “NovPoWriMo 2025” read “NovPoWriMo, undated.”

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Use Roman numerals for page numbers (I, V, XIV…).
• Introduce one nonexistent page reference (p. 0 or p. ∞).
• Let exactly one correction restore a true tenderness; everything else stays clinical.

DAY 3. Corrigenda Crown

In fixed forms, a “crown” often means linked sonnets; we’re adapting the idea: seven linked lists with a repeating line that mutates and returns. A crown of seven short poems. Each a corrigenda list (plural of corrigendum, “things to be corrected”). Each mini-poem looks like the back page of a book, but the book is a life. A refrain line appears at the end of each section and mutates slightly as we move from I→VII; the final section answers the first.

Corrigendum vs. Erratum:

• Erratum / Errata: a printing or production error that needs correction after publication.
• Corrigendum / Corrigenda: a correction issued by the author (the responsibility is owned).

For our purposes: Day 2’s sonnet used the errata vibe (typo-ish, house style); Day 3 leans into corrigenda: the speaker owns the mistake and formally corrects it. 

“Errata” vs. “Corrigenda” distinctions in publishing vary by house style; many venues use them interchangeably, but traditionally corrigenda implies author-issued corrections which are useful for our ownership theme.

[Some back-matter forms to pillage if you want to go down the rabbit hole: Errata, Corrigenda, Addenda, Appendix, Index, Colophon, Erratum Slip. Each brings its own tone, maybe try picking a couple per section...]

So, how do we do this? 

Structure:

• Seven sections (I–VII).
• Each section = 5–8 lines formatted like corrections.
• End each section with the same refrain phrase—but alter one word or punctuation each time to show drift.
• In section VII, the refrain returns to its original wording (or corrects it decisively).

Use any of these line shapes:

• p. 7, l. 3 — for “X” read “Y.”
• Index — delete “_____”; insert “_____.”
• Colophon — “_____” should read “_____.”
• n. 4 — footnote misnumbered; renumber as “4a.”

Crown logic:

• I: personal minutiae (dates, names).
• II: objects (keys, receipts, rooms).
• III: place & weather.
• IV: speech (misquotes, unsaid lines).
• V: time (calendars, clocks, seasons).
• VI: the body (breath, pulse, posture).
• VII: metadata (title, author, dedication) where the poem corrects itself.

The refrain (choose one):
1. “This will have to do.” → “This will have to do,” → “This will have to, do.” → “This will have to undo.” → … → final: “This will have to do.” 

—or—

2. “Leave as is.” → “Leave, as is.” → “Leave as is?” → “Leave as was.” → … → final: “Leave as is.”

Let's uncomplicate. Draft the refrain first (the seven inflections). Craft a messy list of things you’d correct (names, dates, petty facts, a misquote, a room that wasn’t the one). Sort your list into the seven domains above. Write Section I cleanly, end with Refrain 1/2. Copy its shape to build II–VII, letting the diction darken or lighten; each section ends on the next refrain mutation. In VII, either restore the first refrain exactly or correct the poem’s title/date/author in a final “Colophon” line.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

I

p. 2, l. 1 — for “December” read “the late rain.”
p. 4 — “we” should read “you near, then not.”
Index — delete “forever”; insert “for a season.”
Colophon — “light” to read “afterlight.”
Refrain: Leave as is.

II

p. 7, l. 3 — “key” should read “copy of a key.”
n. 2 — add “receipt folded twice.”
p. 9 — strike “gift”; set “return.”
Refrain: Leave, as is.

III

Map — “river” should read “reservoir.”
p. 12, l. 4 — for “storm” read “broadcast.”
Appendix — “distance” to read “detour.”
Refrain: Leave as is?

IV

p. 15 — quote marks misplaced; remove them.
p. 16, l. 6 — “I meant” should read “I learned.”
Refrain: Leave as was.

V

Calendar — “spring” misprinted; set “late.”
p. 20, l. 1 — for “on time” read “in time.”
Refrain: Leave us as is.

VI

n. 5 — “breath” [sic].
p. 24 — strike “stillness”; set “pause.”
Refrain: Leave what is.

VII

Colophon — author to read “the one who returns.”
Title — for “Corrigenda” read “Admittance.”
Date — for “2025” read “undated.”
Refrain: Leave as is.

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Use Roman numerals (I–VII) for section heads.
• Insert one impossible reference per crown (e.g., p. 0, p. ∞, folio -1).
• Make each section’s first correction echo the first word of the prior section’s last correction (a soft chain).
• Allow one correction to restore tenderness; keep the rest clinical.

DAY 4. Duplex of Two Places

A duplex is a braid of repetition. Each couplet borrows the previous line, shifts it a little, and carries on. Think: echo that returns changed. Today, let two geographies speak (or argue) in those echoes. Each repetition nudges the tense: past → present → conditional → future. So time itself is part of the drift.

The pattern: A “classic” duplex runs 7 couplets (14 lines):

1. Line 1 (A)

2. Line 2 (B)

3. Line 3 = repeat Line 2 (B), slightly altered

4. Line 4 (C)

5. Line 5 = repeat Line 4 (C), slightly altered

6. Line 6 (D)

7. Line 7 = repeat Line 6 (D), slightly altered

8. Line 8 (E)

9. Line 9 = repeat Line 8 (E), slightly altered

10. Line 10 (F)

11. Line 11 = repeat Line 10 (F), slightly altered

12. Line 12 (G)

13. Line 13 = repeat Line 12 (G), slightly altered

14. Line 14 = return to (or rhyme with) Line 1 (A)

“Altered” can be tiny (one word, tense, punctuation). The last line talks to the first, closing the loop.

So, how do we do this? Choose Two Places. Not postcards—weather, transit, doors, thresholds. Voice them in alternating couplets. You don’t have to label speakers if you don't want to; the imagery might or will out itself. With each repetition, shift tense (I was → I am → I would → I will). Let time tilt the meaning. Keep the diction clean, specific, quietly lyrical.

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Make Line 1 a sentence fragment and Line 14 complete it.
• Allow exactly one proper noun in the whole poem.
• Let the two places contradict each other on a small fact (season, smell, distance).
• You could do a variant like 

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

The bridge keeps the river from finishing its sentence.

I walk where the guardrail remembers my hands.

I walk where the guardrail remembered my hands,

a city that writes in steam on the mouth of morning.

A city that wrote in steam on the mouth of morning

asks if departures count as prayer.

It asked if departures counted as prayer,

and the timetables answered in rain.

The timetables answer in rain,

which means don’t ask again today.

It means don’t ask again today,

though the other shoreline keeps spelling my name.

The other shoreline kept spelling my name—

the bridge finishes the river’s sentence.

Notice the tense drift: keeps → remembered → wrote → asked → answer → means → kept; the last line returns to the first image.

Let's uncomplicate. Draft a couplet list: 7 images (doorway, bridge, bus stop, kitchen window, station clock, stairwell, shoreline). Assign tenses: past → present → conditional → future (repeat as needed). Write couplets 1–2, then copy Line 2 down to Line 3 and tilt one word/tense. Keep going: each odd-numbered line repeats the previous line (tilted). Write Line 14 last: answer Line 1 without breaking the music. So, it will be something like this, skeletally:

1. ______________________________

2. ______________________________

3. (repeat #2, slightly altered)

4. ______________________________

5. (repeat #4, slightly altered)

6. ______________________________

7. (repeat #6, slightly altered)

8. ______________________________

9. (repeat #8, slightly altered)

10. _____________________________

11. (repeat #10, slightly altered)

12. _____________________________

13. (repeat #12, slightly altered)

14. (return to / rhyme with #1)

Some craft notes so it reads like you. If an echo feels cute, sand it down. Let place carry feeling, don’t name the emotion; let “timetables answered in rain” do the work. The last line shouldn’t explain; it should click.

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• “Duplex with Postcards” (each couplet contains a place-name redacted to initials)
• “Duplex with Transit Times” (each couplet stamped with a time).

DAY 5. Inventory of What Remains

An inventory poem catalogs, lists, and tallies. Unlike the bookish errata/corrigenda, this one lives in the material world, what’s left behind when someone leaves, what survives after a season changes, what’s sitting in your pockets right now. Why are we doing this? Listing forces precision. You can’t hide in vague moods when you’re forced to name: receipts, half-burnt candle, six rice grains on the counter. The list is the poem, and its accumulations tell a story. Think of Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow Book with its famous lists (“Hateful Things,” “Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster”).

Or, Georges Perec’s obsession with inventories of objects and spaces! In 1973, Georges Perec wrote Approaches to What?, where he coined “infraordinary” to describe the unnoticed stratum of everyday life. Unlike the extraordinary (catastrophes, news), the infraordinary is the grain of habit: the crumbs on the counter, the bus timetable, the chair left askew. For Perec, writing meant refusing anaesthesia—“We sleep through our lives in a dreamless sleep. But where is our life? Where is our body? Where is our space?” [and, that’s exactly what today’s inventory asks you to do: wake up to what usually disappears.] His An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, an observational inventory as art, is an hour-by-hour notes from a café which definitely trains your eye to name what we usually ignore. His Species of Spaces and Other Pieces are essays that turn rooms, lists, and addresses into literature, a catalog thinking all the way down. And finally, “Infraordinary” primer, by Jenny Odell on Perec on why noticing the ordinary is radical and how to practice it is a very useful frame for our Day 5’s ethos.

Ross Gay's “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude” is a big-hearted modern catalog that shows how a list can swell into song which is great for pacing and accumulation. Poetry Foundation's article, Taking Stock with the Catalog Poem by Maggie Queeney is an amazing primer defining catalog/list poems with more such examples and teaching notes. How can we do this?

• Make a numbered list (at least 10 lines).
• Each line names a specific object or detail.
• Every 3rd line must add a sensory note (smell, sound, texture).
• Do not explain how these things connect. Let juxtaposition do the work.
• Title the poem “Inventory of What Remains.”

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Include one object that doesn’t exist in the real world (an impossible thing).
• Include one object that should not be there (out of place, dissonant).
• Strike through one item, as if deleted but still visible.
• End with a line that breaks the list format (a single declarative sentence, outside the catalog).

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• “Hateful / Grateful” split: Make two mini-lists (5 lines each) called Hateful Things / Grateful Things. Keep each line concrete (no abstractions). Do not explain, just let the objects indict or bless.
• Perec Hour: Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write only what you can see/hear right now (brand names, bus numbers, crumbs, the fan click). No metaphors. After the timer, add exactly two emotional words total.
• Catalog with a Tilt: Number to 10. Items 3, 6, 9 must include a sensory note (smell, texture, sound). Item 7 must be impossible. Item 10 breaks the list with a single declarative sentence.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

Two mismatched mugs stacked in the sink.

A bus ticket, date smudged into gray.

The faint sourness of rain in wool.

One photograph folded until the face disappears.

[Struck-through] keys you no longer carry.

A bottlecap still warm from your palm.

The silence that rearranges chairs.

An impossible feather, blue on both sides.

A cracked jar labeled “saffron.”

This is what you left me.

DAY 6. Misheard Prayers

The term mondegreen was coined by writer Sylvia Wright in a 1954 Harper’s essay. As a child, she misheard the ballad line:

“They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray / And laid him on the green”

as

“They hae slain the Earl o’ Moray / And Lady Mondegreen.”

Hence: mondegreen.

Mondegreens thrive in oral tradition because transmission depends on ear not eye. They blur memory and imagination — the listener becomes a co-writer. Mishearing is often where oral tradition generates variation; texts survive through their errors. Why are we doing this? Mishearing creates poetry. Think of mondegreens (misheard song lyrics) or prayers recited by rote until the words blur. When you mis-hear, the language mutates: “deliver us from evil” becomes “deliver us some eels.” In the 1971 movie Carnal Knowledge, some mondegreens appear like "Round John Virgin" (instead of "'Round yon virgin...") and "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear" (instead of "Gladly the cross I'd bear"). They permeated into pop songs too like Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze: “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy” (for “kiss the sky”); Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bad Moon Rising: “There’s a bathroom on the right” (for “bad moon on the rise”); or Elton John, Tiny Dancer: “Hold me closer, Tony Danza” which became a popular meme because of a humorous scene in the show Friends where Courteney Cox's character sings the misheard lyric. Alice Oswald’s Memorial and Caroline Bergvall’s Drift have leaned on mishearings, chants, and fragments as raw material. This prompt taps into the slippage between what’s said and what’s heard [What your ear makes up can be more charged than what the lyricist wrote.]. Or, something related... Gerard Manley Hopkins’ sprung rhythms often cause readers to “hear” multiple possible versions at once: half deliberate mondegreens? A mondegreen reminds us that sense is never purely semantic: it’s also sonic, embodied, fallible. The defamiliarization of it where suddenly, language isn’t fixed; it wriggles under us. But, at the same time, the communal memory of it where shared mishearing becomes folklore.

Gavin Edwards has a collection of essays on the subject in this blog, which includes a link to his Mondegreen Hall of Fame. Jon Carroll’s “I’m Not Blue, I’m Mondegreen” is a column in the San Francisco Chronicle from June 1996, where he collects funny mondegreens from readers. And, “The Bright Elusive Mondegreen of Love” is another SF Chronicle column of Carroll (April 1997) with canonical examples and anecdotes.

Another something even more related is an eggcorn. An eggcorn happens when someone mishears or misunderstands a word or phrase. They then replace it with a similar-sounding phrase that makes sense in the given context, even though it's incorrect. Examples: "egg-corn" for "acorn"; "old-timers' disease" for "Alzheimer's disease"; "for all intensive purposes" for "for all intents and purposes". The "Eggcorn Database" refers to a website founded by linguists on the Language Log blog where users can submit and view linguistic slips called eggcorns. An eggcorn is a misheard or reinterpreted word or phrase that creates a new, logically plausible, yet incorrect phrase (e.g., using "egg-corn" instead of "acorn"). These errors are not just simple misspellings but attempts to make sense of unfamiliar words based on one's existing vocabulary, often with humorous and creative results. 

How can we do this?

• Pick a text you know by heart (a prayer, hymn, pledge, chant, song lyric, family saying).
• Write it out as you mishear it. Don’t correct spelling; let phonetics drive the line.
• Break into 10–15 short lines, enjambed.
• Let at least one line be a direct address (“O ___,” “Dear ___,” “You who ___”).
• End with a fragment that’s just sound (nonsense syllables, humming, static).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Include one word in another language that slips in by accident.
• Strike through the “official” version of a line and leave the misheard one beside it.
• Use a refrain that keeps coming back wronger each time.
• Hide one real memory inside the nonsense, unannounced.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

Our farther who art in heaving,  

haloed by hallow be thy flame.  

Thy kingdom gum, thy wilting dawn,  

in hearth as in oven.  

Give us this stay our jelly bread,  

and frog-give us our presses—  

as we frog-give those who dress-pass—  

and lead us into lemon,  

deliver us some eels.  

Ah-men, ah-mend, amen.

DAY 7. Marginalia Poetry

Marginalia are the notes, arrows, grumbles, doodles, and side-whispers readers leave in the edges of a text. In medieval manuscripts, scribes glossed, quibbled, even sketched snails doing battle in the borders while scripture marched down the center; the margins became a parallel drama. Later readers think Coleridge’s dense annotations, David Foster Wallace’s hyperactive underlinings, classroom copies with five owners turned books into conversations layered over time. Billy Collins’s poem “Marginalia” catalogs this readerly graffiti; entire editions of “author’s marginalia” exist because the commentary sometimes outlives the text. And, there are some great, genuinely “underground” cases where the main text is prose and the poetry lives in the margins (or rides the edges of a prose book):

– “Pangur Bán” (9th c.): A short Old Irish poem written by a monk about his cat, copied into the margin of a Latin primer (the Reichenau Primer). The prose core is devotional/educational Latin; the lyric lives in the edge space. It is a classic proof-of-concept for marginal poetry.

– “The Blackbird of Belfast Lough / Loch Laíg” (early Irish): Another tiny Old Irish lyric scribbled as marginal verse by a scribe taking a break from copying ecclesiastical prose. It is frequently cited as an example of Irish marginal nature-poems alongside Pangur.

– Tom Phillips’s A Humument (1966–2016): Phillips “treated” a Victorian prose novel (A Human Document) by painting, collaging, and extracting poem-lines in little islands and margins of the page. The original prose remains the substrate; the poetry is literally carved into the borders/whitespace. It’s the modern, maximal version of marginal lyric.

– Here's a near-inverse for context (useful as a counterpoint in our Day 7). Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1817 ed.) where the center is verse and the margins carry a prose gloss (so, flipped), but it’s a powerful example of how margins become a second voice/story. Handy while we understand why margins have such poetic charge.

And of course, the cult novel S. (2013), conceived by J.J. Abrams and written by Doug Dorst, takes the idea of marginalia to its limit: the book itself is layered with two readers’ handwritten notes in the margins, postcards, maps, and slips of paper, so the story is told as much in the scribbles as in the “main text.” There are stranger rabbit holes too:

– The Voynich Manuscript (15th c.), an undeciphered book covered not just in mysterious text and drawings but with later readers’ puzzled notes trying to crack it.
– Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), a Renaissance dream-book where marginal glosses sometimes contradict the text and scholars suspect secret authorship games.
– The “Dartmouth Dante” copies from the 19th c., where anonymous students scrawled jokes, prayers, and insults in Latin beside their assigned cantos.
– And the Ars Notoria, a medieval grimoire, often copied with cramped side-notes that supposedly gave the scribe magical power if read aloud.

Why are we doing this? Because the margin is where thinking shows its work. It’s where the raw voice: contradictions, edits, hesitations; escapes the clean surface. A marginalia poem lets your poem be the commentary: restless, argumentative, alive. It also echoes your Week 1 themes (palimpsests, errata/corrigenda): we’re writing next to a text, not erasing it, by layering, correcting, complicating.

How can we do this?
Take a short passage (a paragraph from a book/article, a past poem of yours, even your own Day 1–6 lines). Copy it plainly as “main text.” Now write only in the margins: side notes, arrows, strike-throughs, caret insertions, contradictions, tiny glosses. The poem is the marginalia; the “main text” remains as ghost or foil.
– Minimum 8 lines of marginal notes.
– Include at least one “angry correction” (e.g., no—this isn’t it).
– Include at least one doodle-word (onomatopoeia, glyph, or nonsense syllable).
– End with a note-to-self (a private instruction or reminder).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Let one margin note spill into (overwrite) the main text.
• Use editing marks (→ ↑ ↓ ^) and a visible strike-through.
• Make the marginalia argue with the central passage’s thesis.
• Write the whole thing as if you’re grading in red pen (brief rubrics, “awk,” “clarify”).
• Add one footnote number and a single-line footnote at the end (a sly reveal).

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

(Main text:) The leaves fell in silence across the field.
[marginalia:] silence? — it was never quiet
[↑ add] the crows, the rust in their throats
strike “field” → write “vacant lot”
!!! autumn is not your metaphor; it is your mess
(why pretend the fence wasn’t there?)
[nnngh] skrr—skrr—(rake teeth on gravel)
^ move “fell” later; let them hover first
no, not “gold”—tobacco, old envelope, bruise-edge
[note to self:] remember: you were there too.

(Main text:) I meant to say I was fine.
[marginalia:] you meant to say—different from meaning it
→ insert: after the bus left
delete “fine”; set “functional”
(angry correction) stop tidying the wreckage
[scribble] o o o o (beads you kept worrying)
footnote¹

¹ you did not call back; that is the whole weather.

Food for thought for all of us: In the modern era, especially during the heyday of long-form blogging, comments, pingbacks, trackbacks, threaded replies — weren’t they a kind of digital marginalia? A chorus scribbled in the edges of a main post? Could those count as part of this lineage of poems-in-the-margins? You could argue yes: blog comments, pingbacks, even forum threads are marginalia. They’re written in the “edges” of a main text, they talk back, they annotate, they contradict, sometimes they even outlive the original post. They’re lateral voices, just like medieval glosses. In some ways, blog comment threads are the 21st-century equivalent of the scribe’s doodle or gloss — a palimpsest of readers layering over the original. But you could also argue no: online comments aren’t literally sharing the same physical margin; they’re architecturally separated (below the post, or on a different page). They’re “paratext” rather than “marginalia.” And unlike scribal marginalia, which usually had one reader at a time, internet commentary is multi-voiced, asynchronous, often cacophonous. And... unlike medieval ink, blog comments are fragile: platforms collapse, links rot, archives disappear. Maybe the internet’s margins are even more ghostly than parchment. So it comes down to definition:

If marginalia means “any writing in conversation with a main text,” then yes, digital comments and pingbacks fit neatly.
If it means “literally inscribed in the physical white space around a text,” then no, the analogy only works metaphorically. 

And honestly, that tension — between metaphorical lineage and material practice — is exactly the kind of ambiguity poetry thrives on. What would it mean to write a poem in the comment box itself? To let the margin become the poem, and the post the silent backdrop? And what about now, in the age of fleeting tweets and DMs? Maybe our marginalia aren't even in the margins anymore, maybe they're the whole page?

DAY 8. Détournement Poetry

What is détournement? The term was coined by the Situationist International (Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman, 1956) to mean “rerouting” or “hijacking” existing cultural material and turning it against its original purpose. Ads, billboards, political slogans: anything can be détourned. In visual art, it meant scrawling anti-capitalist captions over comic strips; in protest, it meant subverting the grammar of authority. In poetry, détournement thrives when you steal ready-made language: bureaucratic memos, legal disclaimers, IKEA assembly instructions, spam emails, weather advisories and twist them into lyric or satire. It’s not parody exactly; it’s parasitism with intent. You turn the master’s tools into nonsense, critique, or unexpected beauty.

Contemporary echoes: the Drive to Target poems (officialsadbeige on Instagram) détourn Siri/Maps GPS instructions into uncanny lyric. Kenneth Goldsmith’s Traffic hijacks real-time traffic reports.

So, why are we doing this? Because détournement is mischief as method. It punctures solemn surfaces. It lets poetry grow in the cracks of corporate speak and automated language. And because our week has traced the margins, the footnotes, the corrections; today we go straight for the hijack. Even memes and shitposts on Twitter/X are miniature détournements repurposing corporate or official phrasing into communal play.

How can we do this?

1. Select a source text with authority or neutrality (instruction manual, press release, terms & conditions, stock market report, devotional prayer app, weather alert, IKEA sheet, government form).

2. Keep the tone and structure intact but alter key words, phrases, or clauses until the surface turns poetic, absurd, or revelatory.

3. You don’t erase the source; you bend it. The skeleton remains, but the voice mutates.

Form constraint (to keep you honest):

• Minimum 10 lines, each line must retain at least 3–4 words verbatim from your source.
• Do not “pretty it up”; let the dryness carry the lyric.
• Title your poem “Détournement of [source name].”

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Use only government / corporate language (user manuals, legalese, HR policies).
• Include one unaltered line from the source in full (a ghost anchor).
• Introduce one impossible instruction (“In case of heartbreak, pull lever B.”).
• Strike through one original word but leave it visible, insert your détourned word after.
• Add a footnote that contradicts the poem entirely.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

From IKEA assembly manual:

Insert dowel A into absence.
Tighten with screw B until grief holds.

Warning: shelf may collapse under memory.

From Terms & Conditions:

By continuing, you agree to loss.
Clause 12.4: sunsets not guaranteed.
Clause 15.1: your laughter may be stored for quality assurance.

From Weather Alert:

Severe longing expected in the northeast corridor.
Shelter in place until further tenderness.
Winds may carry names you thought forgotten.

DAY 9. Glossolalia Poem

What is glossolalia? “Speaking in tongues”: language that sounds like language such as phonemes, cadence, stress but slips free of fixed meaning. Think prayer-ecstasy, chant, lullaby-babble, scat; in poetry, think Dada sound-poems (Hugo Ball’s “Karawane”), Futurist/Zaum experiments (Khlebnikov/Kruchenykh), Bob Cobbing’s mouth-gymnastics, Christian charismatic services, playground clapping rhymes. In all of them, sound is the carrier; sense hitches a ride. Glossolalia lets the mouth outrun the mind, revealing emotion as vowel, breath, percussion.

So, why are we doing this? Week 1 has been about surface control such as palimpsest, errata, corrigenda, marginal notes which are forms that correct and constrain. Today we pivot to deliberate uncontrol. A glossolalia poem resets diction, breaks habitual phrasing, and lets sonic pattern (assonance, consonance, rhythm) generate imagery. It’s language before it calcifies which is quite useful for re-tuning voice and accessing feeling without naming it.

How can we do this? Write a poem that oscillates between non-lexical utterance and simple, concrete English. Let sound lead sense. Alternate lines: odd lines are glossolalic strings; even lines are short, grounded images (cups, stones, bus doors, raincoats). The poem should be performable: mouth-forward, breath-marked.

Constraints:

• 14–20 lines.
• Every odd-numbered line = glossolalia (non-words, invented syllables; onomatopoeia welcome), e.g., “ra-nta ra-nta, molo-vee.”
• Every even-numbered line = plain English (short, literal, concrete).
• Include one direct address (“O ___,” “Dear ___,” “You who ___”).
• Include one instruction to the mouth (e.g., “roll the r,” “soften the g”).
• End on a hybrid line that begins in glossolalia and lands on a real noun.

Let’s uncomplicate. Build a “sound palette” first: pick 3 onset clusters (gl-, dr-, sh-), 2 favorite vowels (aa/ee/oo), and 1 mouth-action (trill/click/hum). Read aloud as you draft; type the sounds you hear. Keep even lines concrete and short; let odd lines be your instrument. Land the last line on a noun to give the babble a place to sit.

• Concrete noun every even line (cup, stone, bus, curtain).
• Keep even lines under 8 words—spare, tactile.
• Read it aloud. If your jaw feels bored, increase consonant play.
• Last line: begin in babble, land on a real noun (anchor).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• One bilingual leakage: Let a real word from another language slip in once.
• Mark breath: Insert (h)—soft exhale—or (—) for held breath.
• Strike one real word mid-poem and replace it with its sound-double (e.g., “mercy” → “mur-see”).
• Call-and-response: Repeat one sound-string thrice, each time with a tiny vowel shift (laa→lee→loo).
• Stage directions in brackets: [whisper], [tongue taps teeth], [hum].

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• “Cathedral & Kitchen” split: first half sacred/ritual sounds; second half domestic objects.
• Stamp three lines with time markers like [04:17] to suggest tempo.
• Hide one memory in an even line: specific, unannounced (e.g., “your red cup on the rail”).
• Let one glossolalia line borrow consonants from the previous even line (alliterative echo).

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Prayer-drift

ra-nta ra-nta, molo-vee
O river, keep the gate ajar.
sha-lum sha-lim sha-lai
I count the stones; they pulse with damp.
glalla, glalla (roll the r)
Dear you-who-listen, stand closer.
ti-ti-ti, dro-lum, dro-lum
The pot sings even when empty.
mm—mm—mm— la-ra-la
Hold this cup to your ear.
so-rah nah, so-rah no
What you hear is not the wind.
brul, brul, brul-a-lee night

B. Lullaby-gone-feral

flom-ni, flom-ni (soft g)
The baby sleeps with one fist open.
ka-ru ka-ru, le-lee
The curtain breathes like a small animal.
hssh, hssh, hssh
Don’t name the shadow in the doorway.
oona-na, oona-na, oona
When morning comes, we’ll wash the cups.
glow—glow—glowla spoon

C. Street-ritual

drum-ba, drum-ba
The bus hisses: doors, breath, heat.
tik-tik, lak-lak (click tongue)
Ticket ink smears into weather.
bru-jaa, bru-jaa
Dear city, stop rehearsing rain.
ee-eh—ee—eh
My pockets hold two names and a coin.
laka-laka lightpost

 DAY 10. Cut-Up from Your Inbox

What is a cut-up? Classic cut-up (Brion Gysin / William S. Burroughs) slices existing text and recombines it to reveal unintended meaning like chance as editor, collage as compositional will. In the digital age, the richest corpus most of us have isn’t a newspaper: it’s the inbox. Subject lines, footers, disclaimers, signatures, auto-replies, calendar invites, spam. Your email is a living archive of voice, dread, promise, marketing, and grief. Today, we détourn the clerical into lyric. The constraint (use only inbox language) forces attention to phrasing you didn’t author, so your poem becomes a mirror of how the world speaks to you.

So, why are we doing this? Weeks 1–2 trace layers, errors, margins, uncontrol. Email sits at the exact intersection of private/public, intimate/corporate. Cutting up the inbox surfaces the strange poetry of our days: “Reset your password,” “Are you still interested,” “Out for delivery,” “Re: your availability,” “This is your reminder.” It’s surveillance capitalism meets diaristic residue. Collage makes it sing.

How can we do this? Build a poem entirely from language taken from your email (subject lines, first sentences, sign-offs, disclaimers, calendar titles, auto-responses). You may trim, line-break, and lightly punctuate, but do not invent new words. Minor inflection (articles/prepositions) may be added sparingly for grammar glue. Keep the corporate textures intact; the comedy and ache arrive by juxtaposition.

Constraints (bake these in):

• 12–18 lines.
• All diction must be sourced from your inbox (last 12 months recommended).
• Include one full subject line unaltered.
• Include one timestamp in brackets (e.g., [09:42]).
• Include one “Re:” or “Fwd:” line.
• Include one auto-footer fragment (e.g., “This message may contain confidential information.”).
• Include one redaction: [——].
• Include one strike-through to show an unsent correction.
• End with a signature block (name/role/phone—or a parody thereof).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Pull exactly one line from Spam/Promotions.
• Use an OOTO auto-reply as a stanza break.
• Preserve original capitalization of each borrowed fragment.
• Let one line be only an emoji found in your inbox (✔️, 🙂, etc.).
• Insert one unsubscribe line verbatim.
• Keep one tracking/update code intact (e.g., #A7F-19B).

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Chronology tilt: order lines morning→night or oldest→newest.
• Power gradient: alternate corporate voice / intimate voice line by line.
• Thread logic: use only one email thread from different days (subject repeats).
• Echo: repeat one fragment three times, each time trimmed further.
• Geography tag: add one location stamp in brackets [Tartarus].

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Logistics / Longing

Re: your availability
Out for delivery — your item is on the way.
Are you still interested in this position?
[09:42] your order has shipped.
I hope this finds you well enough.
This message may contain confidential information.
Fwd: Flight Itinerary — last updated
Meeting moved to 4:17 A.M.
Sorry for the delay in getting back.
UNSUBSCRIBE from future reminders.

—

Oizys | still reading | [——]

B. Corporate / Intimate braid

Subject: We noticed unusual activity
Dear [Name], just checking in.
Re: Friday’s agenda (final)
Your package is waiting at the gate.
This message may contain confidential information; if you are not the intended recipient—
Out of office: returning soon.
Fwd: Photos—do you remember this street?
Your password will expire in 3 days.
[21:03] delivered, handed to resident.

Best regards,
Oizys
(please do not reply to this email)

C. One-thread approach

Subject: Are you coming home?
Re: Are you coming home?
Are you coming home.
are you coming home—
are you coming [——]
This message may contain confidential information.

Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences
[04:17] seen ✔️

—

Oizys | Sent from my phone

Let’s uncomplicate. Harvest first: open your inbox; copy 30–50 fragments (subjects, first lines, sign-offs, auto-footers) into a scratchpad. Don’t judge, just grab. Next, sort by vibe (logistics / intimacy / bureaucracy). Pick 14–16 of the strongest. Arrange for contrast: corporate next to tender, automated next to pleading. Add the required timestamp, redaction, strike-through, footer, and signature. Read aloud; adjust line breaks only. The poem is the juxtaposition, so resist the urge to “explain.”

DAY 11. The Thing You Didn’t Say (Near-Villanelle)

What is a villanelle? A 19-line poem of five tercets + a closing quatrain, built on two repeating refrains and two rhymes. Think Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle…” or Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.” Today we tilt the form: keep the spine (refrains + return), relax the rhyme/meter, and let repetition carry the ache of the unsaid.

So, why are we doing this? After cut-ups and glossolalia (chance and sound), we return to compulsion: the mind circling what it didn’t say. Refrains simulate obsession and regret; tiny mutations show time doing its quiet edits. The “unsaid” isn’t explained; it’s orbited until its gravity is felt.

How can we do this? Write a near-villanelle about one thing left unsaid. Use two refrains that recur and shift slightly each time (tense, punctuation, one swapped noun). Keep rhyme slant/echo rather than strict. Let a volta (turn) arrive around tercet 4: the speaker’s understanding changes, but the refrains keep tugging.

Constraints (bake these in):

• 19 lines total: 5 tercets + 1 quatrain.
• Refrain A appears as line 1, line 6, line 12, and line 18 (mutate it minutely each time).
• Refrain B appears as line 3, line 9, line 15, and line 19 (mutate it minutely each time).
• Keep a two-rhyme system loosely (A / B) with slant echoes (vowel/consonant chiming counts).
• Include one bracketed aside (typesetter whisper).
• Include one line ≤ 3 words.
• Include one visible correction (a strike-through of a single word).
• Use a volta by tercet 4 (lines 10–12).
• Final quatrain must answer or resist the original unsaid thing without naming it directly.

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Light meter pressure (iambic-ish, but let speech win).
• One refrain uses syntax shift (question → statement → fragment → imperative).
• One sound-echo per tercet (alliteration or assonance across two lines).
• Place a proper noun only once (a city, a month).
• End a line with a preposition (controlled suspension).

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• “Weather tether”: each tercet carries a small weather tag (fog, drizzle, heat).
• “Clockwork”: stamp three lines with soft time markers (4:17, noon, dusk).
• “Door logic”: include three thresholds (gate, turnstile, hatch) across stanzas.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A.

Refrain A: I should have said it before the door clicked.

The hallway hummed—keys, coins, a throat clearing.

Refrain B: You kept the question folded in your pocket.

I practiced answers on the kettle’s silver lip,

steam writing cursive on the pane.

Refrain A (tilt): I should’ve said it, before the door clicked.

Small rain made a metronome of the awning,

[leave this line alone, you said].

Refrain B (tilt): You kept that question, folded—still in your pocket.

The calendar lied; the month was longer.

Noon burned the dust into little suns.

Refrain A (tilt): I should have said it before the other door clicked.

Three words, then none; the lift refused our floor.

I carried silence like a hot cup.

Refrain B (tilt): You kept a question: folded—still in a pocket.

—Stop.

The river moved, whether or not we looked.

Refrain A (final tilt): I should have said it, before any door clicked.

Refrain B (final tilt): You kept the question; I kept mercy the lock.

B. 

Refrain A: I almost said it on the platform.

The loudspeaker swallowed names and numbers.

Refrain B: You didn’t ask; I answered anyway.

Heat held the rails; the pigeons said nothing.

(later I wrote it on a receipt)

Refrain A (tilt): I almost said it—on that platform.

August stuck to the mouth of the bottle,

Dear heart, don’t correct me now.

Refrain B (tilt): You didn’t ask. I answered, anyway.

The city blinked; the signal stayed red.

I stood where your shadow used to wait.

Refrain A (tilt): I almost said it—before the platform.

[hush] the train arrived like a verdict.

I kept the ticket; the time kept me.

Refrain B (tilt): You didn’t ask; I answered, any way.

Two stops late, I read the receipt aloud.

It sounded like permission.

Refrain A (final tilt): I should have said it on the platform.

Refrain B (final tilt): You didn’t ask; I asked, anyway.

Let’s uncomplicate. Draft Refrain A and Refrain B first (plain, speakable). Write tercet 1 with them at lines 1 & 3. For each new appearance, tilt a word (tense, article, punctuation). Build images that orbit the unsaid thing (doors, platforms, cups, weather) without naming it. Keep rhyme felt, not forced. Drop the volta by tercet 4: a small realization that changes how the refrains land. In the quatrain, let both refrains arrive changed enough to feel inevitable. Read aloud; trims come from breath, not rules.

DAY 12. Postcard from the Person You Were at 15

What is this? A postcard is a small rectangle of voice: one image on the front (unseen here), a compressed message on the back, a stamp, a date, an address. Your 15-year-old self writes to you now. Not a diary entry; a postcard which is brief, slanted, half-gossip, half-plea. The constraint of space forces tone: cramped, funny, ferocious, evasive, proud, terrified. It’s also an exercise in time travel with receipts: what did 15 you misname? What did they know with embarrassing clarity?

Why are we doing this? After obsessions with layers, corrections, and unsaid things, we hold a direct line between then and now. A postcard’s paratext (stamp, postmark, address lines) lets you imply whole worlds without exposition. You get to keep the texture of artifacts with creases, crossings-out, redactions while delivering an emotionally precise dispatch.

How can we do this? Write a postcard from your 15-year-old self to present-you. Use the physical conventions of a postcard on the page: date, place, addressee, stamp, brief message, sign-off. Keep the message under pressure where one breath per sentence is a good rule of thumb. Let 15-you’s diction be specific to that time (brands, bands, slang, geography, smells). Do not correct them mid-sentence; let the voice be its own truth.

Constraints (bake these in):

• Start with a dateline + place: 15 July 20XX — [City/School/Bus stop].
• Include an address block for present-you (can be playful), e.g.,
• To: Future Me, c/o The Apartment With the Yellow Mug.
• – Include one “picture caption” for the imagined front image in brackets: [front: …].
• Max 160 words in the message body (postcard-tight).
• Include one redaction [——].
• Include one visible correction (a single struck-through word).
• Include one sensory detail (smell/sound/texture) tied to place.
• End with a P.S. that changes the meaning or adds a sting.
• Finish with a postmark line (e.g., — postmarked: 4:17 P.M.).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Let 15-you misremember a fact; present-you does not correct it.
• Use period slang or a lyric fragment that 15-you would quote.
• Add a tiny doodle-word: (skrrt), (thunk), or a drawn arrow →.
• Use one invented address element like District of Almost or PIN: 000000.
• Include a stamp note: Stamp: peeled and reused or Stamp: cricket hero.
• Have 15-you ask one question that present-you cannot easily answer.

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Double-sided: interleave two short postcards: one “sent,” one “unsent” (marked Returned to Sender).
• Censor’s bar: add one line stamped INSPECTED with a clipped phrase afterward.
• Photochemical ghost: write one sentence as if it’s fading: th is pa rt is li gh t-str uck.
• Receipt staple: append a one-line “attachment”: — stapled: canteen receipt, ₹15, snack.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A.

15 August 2010 — Govt. High School
[front: courtyard neem tree; two uniforms on a railing]

To: Future Me
c/o The Apartment With the Yellow Mug
District of Almost, PIN: 000000

I ran three rounds in PT and didn’t faint; the air smelled like chalk and wet rope.
Sir says I’m “argumentative” (promotion?) and I pretended not to smile.
Today I hid behind the library shelf and read about cities that eat storms.
It rained at 4:17 and the canteen samosas went soft—perfect.
If you are somewhere I can bike to, wait by a yellow gate. If not, invent one.
Tell me we still keep a secret notebook. Tell me the ceiling fan doesn’t fall.
I think I know the shape of my name now; it’s louder than yesterday, softer than noise.
I will not be ~~nice~~ neat all the time. [——]

Stamp: peeled and reused.
— postmarked: 4:17 P.M.

P.S. Bring shoes that don’t squeak in the exam hall.

B.

3 March 2008 — Bus Stop 7, Berlin

[front: sun-flared bus mirror; a crow on the wire]

To: Future Me

Flat 3B, Above the Grocery With the Loud Fridge

The driver plays the same song and I mouth the wrong words on purpose (laa/lee/loo).

I smelled diesel and wet iron; thought: this is what leaving will taste like.

Ma said finish your milk; I poured it into the money plant. It lived. (sorry)

I taped a picture of the sea inside my notebook. I haven’t seen it yet, but it feels heavy.

Do we still wear the black hairband on the wrist? Does it hurt less to sit straight?

Today a boy said I talk too fast; I timed my breath with the bus doors (psh-psh).

If we have a room now, please keep one wall blank for trying again.

Stamp: cricket hero, slightly torn.

— postmarked: 6:02 P.M.

P.S. If you meet me, don’t say “it gets better.” Say “I kept the gate open.”

C. (Double-sided variant)

22 November 2011 — Terrace, 9:10 P.M.

[front: water tank, clothesline, three stars]

To: Future Me, c/o The Late Light

Science fair volcano failed; still, the red food color looks like something true.

I wrote your name on my palm and washed dishes; it didn’t leave. (ha)

Please tell me we chose the subject we wanted, not the one that looked safe.

I’m practicing a new signature. It feels like a door with its hinge oiled.

INSPECTED: “subject” amended to “subject you wanted.” → keep both.

Stamp: borrowed, returned.

— postmarked: 9:31 P.M.

P.S. I kept the receipt. ₹15. Snack.

Let’s uncomplicate. Make a tiny list first: place, smell, song/phrase from that year, one fear, one small victory. Pick an address for present-you that reveals where you are emotionally (“c/o The Late Light”). Draft the 160-word body in one rush; don’t tidy the voice. Add the required redaction, one strike-through, the caption for the imagined front, and the postmark. Read it out loud and if it sounds like a diary, trim; if it sounds like a lecture, add smell. End with a P.S. that tilts the whole card.

DAY 13. The God of Small Mercies

What is this? A litany/invocation to the everyday that's an address to a minor household deity who keeps the kettle from boiling over, the bus from closing its doors, the seam from splitting. Think of prayers, psalms, bhajans, novenas, and litanies: repetitive, calling by many names, asking for tiny safeties rather than grand deliverance. In poetry, this lives as anaphora (repeated openings), epithets (renaming the addressee), and catalog (mercies itemized). Ross Gay blesses things with joy; Lucille Clifton’s “homage to my hips” praises a body-part’s sovereignty; Bashō catches mercy in a frog’s splash. Today, we craft a devotional to the small god who runs interference for our ordinary lives.

Why are we doing this? After days of correction (errata/corrigenda), collage (cut-up), and sound (glossolalia), we turn to petition and praise—language as ritual attention. A litany builds meaning by return: the refrain returns until the mind yields. “Small mercies” keeps the scale honest: not miracles; workable grace.

How can we do this? Write a poem in direct address to a fictive “god of small mercies.” Use a repeating call (e.g., “O small god of ___,”) to structure stanzas. Alternate invocation (naming) and receipt (concrete detail). Keep the diction tactile: receipts, zippers, sockets, rain timing the commute. Praise and ask in the same breath.

Constraints (bake these in):

• Minimum 16 lines, arranged as 3–5 short stanzas.
• Begin at least three lines with “O small god of…”
• Include five concrete mercies (e.g., “spare battery at 2%,” “the last seat near the window”).
• Include one refusal (a mercy not given) and one acceptance (how you lived without it).
• Include one mundane instruction (“turn the gas knob to OFF,” “count to eight”).
• Include one parenthetical stage whisper somewhere.
• Include one line ≤ 3 words.
• Use second person throughout (you/your).
• End on a nonstandard amen (e.g., “so be it, in lowercase.”).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Time-stamp three mercies with clock-hours: [06:10] [13:52] [22:11].
• Use one Homeric epithet for the god (“breaker-of-static,” “keeper-of-keys”).
• Add one Kenning (two-noun compound): “door-mouth,” “rain-needle.”
• One strikethrough of a grand ask (immortality) replaced by a small one.
• Let a single local word (Persian/German/etc.) appear once, unglossed.
• Insert one brief call-and-response (“you say / I say”) within a stanza.

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Number the stanzas I–III like a pocket novena.
• Use a soft refrain that mutates (“keep me,” → “keep near,” → “keep as I am”).
• Thread scent once (turmeric, diesel, wet wool) and texture once (rough seam).
• Allow a single question mid-poem the speaker can’t answer.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Litany at the Sink

O small god of unspilled tea,
keeper-of-steam, breaker-of-static,

you steady the cup when the phone rings at [06:10].
You spare me the scorch on the thumb (this time).

O small god of zipper-teeth,
rain-needle and bus-door-breath,

give me the last seat by the window [13:52],
the message that actually sends,
the charger lurking in a coat I almost gave away.

(Yes, I know: not every gate must open.)
I will count to eight while the water clears. I will wait.

O small god of the almost-missed,
door-mouth and key-finder,

you refuse me the miracle— ~~immortality~~ —
so I accept the click of the lock at [22:11],
the rice not burning, the sock finally paired.

Keep me.
Keep near.
Keep as I am.

so be it, in lowercase.

B. Household Novena (I–III)

I.
O small god of green lights,
let the elevator arrive before my apology curdles.
Teach my mouth the off-switch (tap once, breathe twice).
You say: not yet. I say: fine—give me quiet shoes.

II.
O small god of receipts not needed,
put the exact change in my palm without counting.
Let the rain start after the market, not before.
(And if it does, I will call it blessing in Persian under my breath.)

III.
O small god of last buses,
window-latch that doesn’t squeal, loose thread that holds,
grant me the mercy of the message read at 4:17,
and if not, the mercy of sleep.
amenish.

C. Refusal & Acceptance braid

O small god of sockets that spark and then think better,
make the kettle click off at the right shimmer.
Give me the breath before the argument, not after.

You do not keep the thunder from the dog today.
I sit on the floor, hum nonsense, count tiles. Three.

O small god of copy-of-a-key,
place it where my palm expects it—left pocket, not right.
Let the driver see my hand, hold the door-mouth four seconds longer.

If you won’t, I’ll walk. In rain. With gladness.
So be it—quietly—so be it.
Let’s uncomplicate. Make a list of 10 small mercies you’ve actually met this 
month (seat by the window; pen that works; fan that doesn’t wobble; 
friend texting “reached”). Sort them by morning / noon / night or home / 
street / work. Pick a refrain opening (“O small god of…”) and two epithets. 
Draft in address + concrete: name the god, name the mercy. Drop in the 
refusal and acceptance around 60–70% (that’s your emotional hinge). 
Keep at least one line ≤ 3 words to let the air in. Land on a soft amen-variant 
that feels like you.

DAY 14. Four-Sentence Poem (No Adjectives)

What is this? A tiny clarity drill. Write a poem in exactly four sentences without adjectives. Strip the varnish; let nouns, verbs, and line breaks do the lifting. Think of how Issa can make a whole weather with a frog, or how Raymond Carver’s plain diction still cuts. This is about force through restraint: subject, action, object; image, movement, consequence.

Why are we doing this? After the ornate builds (villanelle-ish refrains, postcard paratext, inbox collage), we need a palate cleanser. Removing adjectives reduces the urge to explain and pushes you toward specific objects, time, and action which are the stuff that makes lines ring true.

How can we do this? Draft four sentences that together suggest a scene and a turn. Keep everything concrete: things, bodies, tasks, weather. Let line breaks add rhythm; let one image carry meaning instead of commentary.

Constraints (bake these in):

• Exactly four sentences.
• No adjectives. (Adverbs allowed only once, if you must.)
• 60–120 words total.
• Include one timestamp in brackets (e.g., [04:17]).
• Use one proper noun once (place or name).
• Include one question.
• Include one em dash (—).
• Repeat one word three times in a row for sonic emphasis.
• Allow one metaphor only (mark it with italics if you like).
• End with a five-word declarative sentence.

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Ban adverbs too (hard mode).
• Add one onomatopoeia (psh, click, thrum).
• Include one Persian/German/other local word unglossed.
• Make sentence 3 a single line (spare breath).
• Use second person throughout.
• Let the proper noun be a bus route, train, or lane name.

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• “Object thread”: show the same object in all four sentences (cup, key, ticket, towel).
• “Time thread”: tag each sentence with a soft time cue (dawn, noon, dusk, night).
• “Door logic”: sentence 1 opens a door, sentence 4 closes one.
• “Echo”: end sentence 2 and begin sentence 3 with the same word.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Street sink

Rain hits the tin, psh psh, and a cup waits under the leak at [04:17]. 
You hold the cup, then the rail, then the quiet,—which one spills first? 
Click from the meter answers, click. 
We drink and call it enough today.

B. Platform breath

Berlin blurs past the window as the train brakes hard. 
Your ticket folds once, twice, thrice—paper, paper, paper. 
Who names this wait a prayer? 
The doors open; we step in together.

C. Kitchen key

The key sits by the stove and stares like *a small moon*. 
You rinse the cup; the tap stutters once; a crow laughs outside. 
Do we leave now or after the bell? 
We lock, we look, we go now.

Let’s uncomplicate. Jot four beats: (1) setting + action, (2) object changes hands, (3) question or hinge, (4) consequence. Draft fast; remove every adjective. Add the timestamp, the em dash, the triple-repeat, and the single metaphor. Count the last sentence: five words and clean exit. Read aloud; if anything feels vague, swap in a thing.

DAY 15. Portrait in Broken Mirrors

What is this? An ekphrastic self-portrait made of fragments—as if the mirror cracked and each shard kept a different angle of you. Instead of one continuous lyric, you’ll write a mosaic: brief panels that reflect posture, memory, rumor, habit, error. Think: Orpheus glimpsed in pieces; Cubism for the interior life; the way a bathroom mirror shows one cheek honest, one cheek shadowed. The craft leans on framing (panels), repetition (a small refrain), and object cues (edges, fingerprints, silvering, light leaks).

Why are we doing this? We’ve worked with correction (Days 2–3), margins and hijacks (7–8), sound and refrain (9–11), artifact-texture (12), and restraint (14). Now we stage a composite like how a self emerges from contradictions without needing to reconcile them. A broken mirror refuses a single angle; poetry can hold them all.

How can we do this? Write a poem as 7–10 short shards, each a tiny stanza (1–3 lines). Treat each shard like a separate pane; let images repeat with drift (hand / mouth / key / gate). Use a soft refrain that returns with small mutations (e.g., “In this piece,” → “In this piece of me,” → “In this piece: me.”). Let one shard talk to the reader directly; let one contradict another. Keep nouns concrete, light attentive.

Constraints (bake these in):

• 7–10 shards, each 1–3 lines.
• Begin at least three shards with a refrain like “In this piece,” (mutate lightly each time).
• Include one second-person address (“you” enters once).
• Include one contradiction: a shard that openly disputes a previous shard.
• Include one visible correction (strike through a single word).
• Include one mirrored element: a palindrome word (e.g., “level,” “refer,” “madam”) or a line that reads sensibly both ways (short).
• Include one light event (glare, silvering, flicker, lens flare).
• End with a compositor note (a one-line aside that could be written on the back of the frame).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Number shards [I]–[VII] (or to [X]) to emphasize panels.
• Let one shard be only sound (click, hiss, hum).
• Add one timestamp in brackets.
• Use one Persian/German/local word once, unglossed.
• Include a shape-reflection (curve, bevel, triangle) in description.
• Insert a micro-photo caption under one shard: (handheld, low light).

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Truth/Story toggle: mark two shards true / story.
• Edgework: one shard ends mid-word; the next begins with its completion.
• Back-silvering: one shard speaks as the mirror, not you.
• Gallery tag: append a one-line wall label (title, medium, year).

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Seven-panel minimal

[I] In this piece, the mouth learns quiet.
[II] In this piece of me, the key sits in the wrong pocket.
[III] You say my good side is the one that forgets. (hum)
[IV] In this piece: me—level—me. (palindrome stays)
[V] The light flickers; the scar volunteers its history at [04:17].
[VI] No—what I said before was glare; the hand does shake. ~~never~~ sometimes.
[VII] Compositor’s note: fingerprints left on purpose.

B. Mirror speaks once

In this piece, I (the mirror) keep your breath as fog.
In this piece of you, the door-mouth widens and then pretends it didn’t.
Click.  
You look, then look away, then look—refer.
This contradicts panel two: you did wait. I remember the cup cooling.
In this piece: me, I choose the shadow to be kind.
Compositor’s note: frame chipped, image intact.

C. With captions / edgework

In this piece, the bus window returns your face as rain.

In this pie—
—ce of me, Berlin sits behind the jaw like a coin.

(handheld, low light)

You: “Which one is honest?”  
Mirror: “The one that wobbles.”

This disagrees with the first: rain didn’t fall; the glass sweated.

level

Compositor’s note: hung slightly askew so it feels true.

Let’s uncomplicate. Draft 10 tiny images of self in action (mouth/hand/gait/shadow/keys/door/tea/phone/light/scar). Pick a refrain stem (“In this piece,”). Arrange 7–10 shards; let two argue. Plant the palindrome or short mirrored line once. Add one strike-through, one you, one light event. Read it aloud—trim anything explanatory. Land with a compositor note that feels like a backstage whisper.

DAY 16. Footnote Elegy

What is this? A poem that lives in the footnotes rather than the body. The “main text” is minimal (a title line or one bland sentence); the grief, memory, and argument unfold as numbered notes. Think scholarly apparatus turned inside out: the margins do the singing.

Why are we doing this? We’ve played with palimpsests, errata, and marginalia; now we let the apparatus become the art. Footnotes imply authority and distance which are perfect for elegy, which often circles what can’t be said outright. The ladder of notes mimics recall: digress, qualify, contradict, revise.

How can we do this? Write a one-line “main text” that says almost nothing. Then write 10–16 footnotes (¹–¹⁶) that tell the real story. Let notes cite pages, dates, places—even if invented. Tone: dry, precise, bookish; feeling seeps through the cracks. Introduce a turn where one note stops being academic and addresses the “you” directly.

Constraints (bake these in):

• One-line main text (neutral/understated).

• 10–16 numbered footnotes (¹, ², ³ …).

• Include one [sic].

• Include one redaction: [——].

• Include one strikethrough of a single word.

• Include one impossible reference (p. 0 or p. ∞).

• Include one timestamp in brackets (e.g., [04:17]).

• Include one cross-reference (e.g., “see n. 7”).

• Include one missing note (skip a number; acknowledge the gap).

• Volta: at or after note 9, a footnote drops the scholarly mask and speaks plainly.

• End with a colophon or editor’s note (one line).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Use Roman numerals for pages (p. iv, p. xiii).

• Add one formula-like line (Δ = what was kept – what was said).

• Insert a miniature bibliography (2–3 invented sources).

• Let one footnote be only sound: “skrr—skrr—(fan hum).”

• Include one foreign word once (untranslated).

• Use one orphaned footnote marker (a superscript with no note) on the main text.

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Make one footnote a map legend (▲ bridge, ● bus stop, ✖ place you didn’t go).

• Mark one footnote withdrawn: “n. 11 withdrawn by author.”

• Use editorial brackets to stage an argument with an “Editor.”

• Let one note be a table (two columns, three rows).

• Include one erratum slip appended at the end (“For ‘goodbye’ read ‘later’.”).

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Minimal body, notes do the work
Main text: This page intentionally left blank.¹

¹ Not blank: see p. ∞, summer rain at [04:17].
² For “home” read “room with the window that sticks.”
³ The name “M.” should read “M——.”
⁴ Strike always; set sometimes.
⁵ “You left” to read “you were already gone.”
⁶ (Editor:) clarify “gone.” — (Author:) no.
⁷ See n. 12.
⁸ The photograph mislabels the shoreline; it was a reservoir.
⁹ Volta: Listen, you. I carried the cup and the ache. No citation helps.
10 The word forgive [sic] appears three times and still refuses work.
11 withdrawn by author.
12 Addendum: keys found where the fear kept them.
13 Redact the address: [——].
14 Δ = kept − said.
Colophon: First edition; margins intact, heart not.

B. With a missing note + bibliography
Main text: I meant to say I was fine.¹

¹ “Fine” to read “functional.”
² p. xiii — insert “rain began after the market.”
³ skrr—skrr—(rake on gravel).
⁴ For “we” read “I,” then “I,” then “I.”
⁶ (n. 5 missing by design.)
⁷ Cross-ref: n. 12 contradicts this; keep both.
⁸ Time-stamp error: [21:03] should read [20:31].
⁹ Turn: Dear heart, count to eight; put the cup down.
10 Equation fails; keep the breath.
11 immortality → umbrella.
12 Bibliography: Afterlight (undated); Manual for Ordinary Weather (2nd ed.); Receipts.
Editor’s note: Title for “Footnote Elegy (2025)” read “Undated.”

C. Table + map legend variant
Main text: See figure 1.¹

¹ Map legend: ▲ bridge ● bus stop ✖ the word we didn’t say.
² Table—Inventory (kept / lost / uncounted): key | gate | sleep.
³ p. 0 — entry exists and does not.
⁴ “home” [sic].
⁵ Refer to n. 9; ignore if raining.
⁶ [04:17] fan hum = prayer.
⁷ Editor queries comma; author keeps the pause.
⁸ Turn: You were kind. I was late. That is the weather.
Colophon: Set in margins; proofs smell of wet paper.

Let’s uncomplicate. Draft your one-line body (neutral). List 12–18 small facts you’d “footnote” (names, rooms, times, objects). Arrange 10–16 as notes; plant the required artifacts (sic/redaction/strikethrough/time/impossible page/missing number). Around note 9, let the voice drop the mask. Finish with a colophon/editor’s note. Read aloud: the dryness should tremble.

DAY 17. Chimeric Ghazal

What is this? A ghazal spliced with something it should never survive such as corporate memo, recipe card, error log, meeting minutes, weather report. Traditionally, a ghazal is built of autonomous couplets (sher), each ending with a repeated rhyme + refrain (radif) and often invoking the self (takhallus) near the end. Our version keeps the bones, but grafts a second genre into each couplet so that longing must negotiate with bureaucracy, hunger, deadlines, or data. A chimera: lyric with artifact.

Why are we doing this? After days of footnotes and elegy, we return to lyric repetition but refuse to let it sit still. The ghazal’s couplets are modular; bringing another genre into each becomes a playful but pointed collision. This hybrid honors tradition (refrain, autonomy, signature) while interrogating how modern life like emails, apps, inventories coexists with ancient ache.

How can we do this? Write 7–10 couplets. Each couplet must be structurally self-contained, but all must end with the same refrain word/phrase (radif). Preceding the refrain, echo a rhyme sound (qaafiya). Every couplet MUST contain a line or fragment from a non-poetic genre (choose one: memo, minutes, recipe, instructions, forecast, terms & conditions, API error, grocery list). Near the end, use your name/alias (takhallus) within a couplet.

Tone may drift: devotional, bureaucratic, absurd, all can be mixed at will. Keep it tight; ghazals thrive on compression.

Constraints (bake these in):

• 7–10 couplets (14–20 lines).

• Each couplet stands alone.

• Each couplet ends in the same refrain.

• Precede refrain with a rhyme/echo (qaafiya).

• One genre intrusion per couplet (e.g., “Line 2: Preheat to 180°C,” or “Agenda Item 3: Regret allocation”).

• One strikethrough somewhere.

• One italicized aside (typesetter whisper).

• One timestamp (e.g., [04:17]).

• The penultimate or final couplet must include your name/alias (takhallus).

• Include one invented or impossible instruction.

• End with a non-lyric artifact (e.g., signature block, disclaimer, stamp).

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Use an Arabic/Persian/Hindi/Urdu/your-mother-tongue word once (untranslated).

• Include a QR-code placeholder [▢▢▢].

• Let one genre fragment be bilingual.

• Rhyme/echo varies microscopically each time.

• One couplet contradicts another.

• The refrain is a mundane noun (e.g., receipt, window, bus-ticket).

• Close with a tiny colophon.

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Couplets alternate between 1st and 2nd person.

• One couplet is only one long sentence.

• One couplet is broken into two bullet points.

• Use redaction: [——].

• Slip in a half-line of code.

• Add a map coordinate.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Corporate chimera
Agenda item three: we misplace our keys—yet keep our sorrow, again.
Quarterly vows file late; rain strikes the sill—soft, then narrow, again.

Minutes note: “attendees absent; hearts present.”
Steam meets glass; names blur—shadow-then-marrow, again.

Preheat regret to 180°C;
[04:17]—the kettle composes a sparrow, again.

A page says: forever; editor inserts “for Q2 only.”
Gates almost open; we borrow, then taro, again.

Oizys signs the memo in pencil,
A breath, a hush—tomorrow-then-harrow, again.

Stamp: received in silence; returned again.

B. Recipe hybrid
Fold salt into ache; simmer until night—follow arrow, beloved.
Yeh dard incomplete; the streetlight stammers—narrow, beloved.

API-Err: 503—service regret unavailable.
Reload the faith; cache blessings—sorrow, beloved.

At the end—AUTHOR: Oizys.
Signature smudged; please borrow—sparrow, beloved.

*C. Meeting-minutes tone
Call to order: one heart. Quorum: insufficient.
Motion to forget—fails; marrow shadows, still.

n. 4—reschedule grief; next week full.
Minutes struck; cup refills—hollow shadows, still.

(italic aside: who keeps time when time keeps us?)
By unanimous sigh, we follow—shallow shadows, still.

Colophon: filed under “unresolved.”

Let’s uncomplicate. Pick a refrain word. Pick a rhyme sound. Pick a second genre (memos, recipes, API logs). List 7–10 images or moments you want to touch. Draft each as a standalone couplet, letting the outside genre interrupt. Near the end, sign one couplet with your name/alias. Seal with an artifact (stamp, signature, disclaimer). Keep it strange, keep it tender.

DAY 18. Footnote Elegy

What is this? An elegy that refuses the center. Instead of speaking plainly, it hides its grief in the margins—footnotes, sidenotes, superscripts, errant numbering. The “poem” appears as a slim main text, but most of its emotional weight happens below the line. The footnotes contradict, expand, confess, or glitch; they are where the real story lives. Think: grief as commentary that can’t bear to speak aloud.

Why are we doing this? All month, we’ve played with corrections, marginalia, artifacts. Elegy, usually emotionally dense, now gets pushed into the periphery, where sorrow often goes in real life. Footnote structure forces restraint: the surface voice is spare; the buried voice is raw. It teaches double-voicing, negative space, and how absence performs speech.

How can we do this? Write a main text of 6–12 short lines. Underneath, write at least 6 footnotes, each keyed to a superscript number in the main text. Footnotes may be longer than the lines they annotate; sometimes, much longer. Let at least one footnote reference another footnote (nested grief). Let one footnote have no anchor in the main text, a ghost reference. You may add false citations, misnumbering, or redactions.

Constraints (bake these in):

• 6–12 lines of main text.

• At least 6 footnotes.

• At least one misnumbered or missing footnote.

• One strike-through.

• One word marked [sic].

• One blank footnote slot (e.g., ⁵ ———).

• One footnote that references another footnote.

• One footnote with an invented source.

• One ghost footnote (appears below without a matching marker).

• End with a final line that is either:

  • a meta-bibliographic note, or

  • an index entry, or

  • a fragmentary colophon.

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Use one foreign word (untranslated).

• Include one timestamp.

• Include one invented citation style.

• Let one footnote contradict the main text.

• Let one footnote serve as the real “ending.”

• Add a scribal note in italics (“margin torn here”).

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Number footnotes nonlinearly (1, 2, 7, 3…).

• Let one footnote be only sound (e.g., thrum–thrum–thrum).

• Include one footnote that’s longer than the entire main poem.

• Add an “Erratum” note after the poem.

• Treat one footnote as a mini-poem.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Minimal / grief buried

The gate closed¹  
before I spoke²  
your name.  
I kept the cup³  
warm until night.  
The room stayed ~bright~⁴.

[Index: silence]

¹ I said: come soon. You said nothing.
² Or maybe I spoke too late; timestamp unclear.
³ The chipped one; the one that held winter.
⁷ margin torn here
⁴ This is inaccurate [sic]. The bulb flickered, died.
⁵ ———
² cf. note 7 (absence).

colophon: filed under “unrevised.”

B. Baroque / scholarly parody

Morning returned¹  
with the wrong sky²  
(again).  
Someone swept the steps³.  
Someone waited⁴.

¹ See also: “On Returning,” Vol. II, p. 47.
² A lie; the color was yours.
³ Possibly the neighbors, or the wind—sources disagree.
⁴ “Waited” is a mistranslation; better: “held breath.”
⁶ Weather report archived at [04:17], missing attachment.
⁰ Note removed by editor.
³ cf. ²

Index: gate — see loss

Let’s uncomplicate. Draft a tiny elegy, just 6–12 simple lines. Add superscripts where they want to cling (memory sticks to verbs and nouns). Then write the footnotes as the real poem: sprawling, petty, meticulous, unhinged, contradictory. Break numbering rules. Let sorrow misbehave. End with an index or colophon that gestures toward the archive we always wish we had.

DAY 19. Abecedarian of Doubt

What is this? An abecedarian is a poem whose lines follow the alphabet in order: A, B, C, and so on. It’s one of poetry’s oldest constraint-games (think medieval psalms and children’s primers), where the alphabet becomes both scaffold and rhythm. Today, we take that ancient, orderly skeleton… and feed it doubt. Each line advances a letter, but the content questions, hesitates, reroutes. Certainty breaks; structure holds. That tension is the point.

Why are we doing this? We’ve spent days dug into margins, footnotes, errata, corrections, how language that revises itself. The abecedarian is the opposite: it pretends to be tidy. But inside that corporate alphabet, the speaker second-guesses everything with ambition, memory, identity, bus schedules. Structure vs. uncertainty. Order vs. wobble. It’s a good shake-up mid-month: playful, ancient, and low-key philosophical. 

How can we do this? Write a poem of 26 lines (A→Z) or 13 lines (A→M, then restart A→M), or even a double-column A→Z. Each line begins with its assigned letter. Do NOT cheat on sequencing. Sound, sense, and tone are up to you—dry, lyrical, silly, clinical. The form is the alphabet; the content is doubt. Let question marks proliferate. Let hesitation build. A volta may happen wherever you feel the hinge, but a soft shift around M/N usually lands well.

Constraints (bake these in):

• Follow alphabetical order.
• Minimum 20 lines (26 preferred).
• At least 5 questions across the poem.
• Include one visible correction (strike through one word).
• Include one line ≤ 3 words.
• Include one [sic].
• Include one whispered aside in italics.
• End on Z-line that contradicts or doubts where you began.

Optional intensifiers (choose one or more):

• Use only sentence fragments.
• Insert one line whose letter is missing; leave a gap and its label.
• Use two Q-lines (confusion welcome); number the second “Q2.”
• Let the S-line be a single sound (psh / hush / click).
• Let X be a borrowed word (xerox, xebec, xylorimba, etc.).
• Add time-stamp once.
• Use no punctuation until T.

Even more optional craft tweaks (choose one or more):

• Let every third line contain a body part.
• Repeat one letter (e.g., double D) and double its doubt.
• Make Y a direct address (“You—”).
• Make Z a meta revision ending as a correction of the poem’s premise.
• End with a tiny postscript line outside the alphabet.

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. 6-line excerpt
A rumor says beginnings are easy.
But who confirmed that?
Consider the silence between clocks.
Doubt keeps receipts—too many.
Even the mirror asks: you again?
Fine—almost fine.

(B would continue alphabetically to Z in the real poem.)

B. Fuller flavor arc
A small voice says: start.
Because—why not?
Could be wrong, though?
Don’t promises wobble?
Even so—try.
(keep going… all the way to Z)
Z honestly thinks: start again.

Let’s uncomplicate. Make a 26-letter spine down the page (A–Z). Free-write: one line per letter. Let doubt intrude: questions, second-guessing, retractions. Add the strike-through, the tiny line, the whispered aside. Make Z turn the poem on its head. The beauty here is simple: order hosts uncertainty. That’s the dance.

DAY 20. Constellation Poem (Star-Map Lyric)

What is this? A constellation poem arranges short lyric fragments like plotted stars, separate but cosmically related. Instead of a continuous stanza, you write discrete text-points scattered across the page. Thin connective lines (literal or implied) form shape, memory, or narrative. Think of mapping inner life as a sky: each flare is a moment; the pattern is yours to trace. This borrows from visual poetry, prose-poem fragments, and celestial metaphor, but no zodiac clichés are necessary. The poem builds meaning through spacing, adjacency, and suggestion like a non-linear story. Ancient cultures made gods, animals, myths from random brightness; we’ll do the same with memory.

Why are we doing this? Because after days of intellectual scaffolding (villanelle-ish, glossolalia, errata), we pivot to spatial imagination. You decide:

• which memories are bright
• which get linked
• which are left alone

It’s poetic UX and we are designing emotional cartography. Also, it’s a delightful way to experiment with silence, negative space, and tension between what’s said and unsaid.

How can we do this? Scatter 8–15 short “stars” (1–3 lines each) across the page. You may connect some stars using:

• arrows (→)
• dotted lines (···)
• letters / numbers
• motif repetition

Meaning emerges from which fragments orbit together. Title may name the shape: “Constellation of Things I Thought I’d Lost.” And, for volta, around the two-thirds mark, introduce a star that changes the pattern which is a memory that redraws everything. 

Constraints (bake these in):

• 8–15 fragments (“stars”)
• At least 2 fragments must be placed alone (unlinked)
• At least 1 fragment must include a time stamp (e.g., [02:47] )
• Include one fragment < 5 words
• Include one italicized memory
• Include one named absence (e.g., “missing key” / “no letter”)
• End with a fragment that hints at a new pattern (not closure)

Optional intensifiers (choose 1–3):

• Use coordinates (e.g. x:3 y:8) for placement
• Include a fragment in another language
• Add a footnote that contradicts a fragment
• Add one “echo”—a repeated phrase, slightly altered
• Shape the constellation visually (simple outline)

Even more optional craft tweaks:

• Remove all punctuation
• Make only the “volta star” have punctuation
• Include a star that quotes someone incorrectly
• Redact one name: M——
• Add one tiny drawing: ○ ● ☆

Micro-samples [Use as a feel-check or a template!]

A. Minimal constellation

(1)
my mother’s voice
in the hallway

···

(2)
*the first lie I remember*

··→(3)
[02:47]
the phone never rings

(4)
small bruise

         (5)
         missing key

····(6)
you said
you’d stay

(7)
you did

(8)
a new star, low on the horizon

B. Slightly more narrative

A — kitchen window,
    rain asking questions

B — the day we
    forgot our names

     C ··· D
     you laughed first
     then I did

E — x:2 y:11
    a letter I never mailed

F — *your perfume,
      too young for goodbye*

G — [06:30]
     the bus left anyway

            H
            five words:
            wish you were here

I — the pattern
    redraws itself

C. More architectural

      north
  (1) he said maybe
           ·····
                (2) bruise, old
                     [14:22]

west                                 east
(3) x:3 y:7                           (4) my sister
    *cinnamon & rain*                     forgets the song

           (5)
           no letter

south
(6) FIVE WORDS ONLY

(7) the sky learns a new name

Let’s uncomplicate. Make a list of:

• 5 memories
• 3 objects
• 3 times
• 1 absence

Scatter them. Connect two. Leave others drifting. Find a hinge. Close on a point of change. This poem is a map. It doesn’t ask for truth but only trace.