NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 7 — Marginalia Poetry

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?

Marginalia Poetry

I opened the window to let the morning in.

Marginalia:
→ add: it hesitated, like it knew better
no — not “morning,”
   ~morning~ → uninvited memory
↑ this is where the draft pretends it’s gentle
(angry correction) stop romanticizing the ache
scribble: skrrt-skrrt (wingbeats / nerves)
^ move “opened” later; you only thought you did
question?? did you close it afterward
why does light always feel like an audit
o o o (three hollow suns, mocking)
→ insert: the birds weren’t singing — they were warning
you should say it plainly: you weren’t ready¹
[note to self:] next time, lie slower.

¹ yes, you kept the curtains drawn after.

~ Oizys.

NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 6 — Misheard Prayers

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 6. Misheard Prayers

O widowed wind,
our farther in the heaving,

hollow be that flame,
thy kingdom gum,

thy well-be-done
in earth as in oven.

give us this day our jelly thread,
and frog-give us our tresst,

as we frog-give
those who pass us by the side road,
in rain. (I remember your coat here.)

lead us into lemon,
deliver us some eels,

dear lantern of wrong things,
still,
still—

ah-min,
ah-mere,
mmm-mmm-nn.

~ Oizys.

NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 5 — Inventory of What Remains

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.

Inventory of What Remains

1. Two chipped teacups on the windowsill.

2. A bus ticket, month long expired.

3. The smell of cardamom caught in yesterday’s steam.

4. A stone I meant to return to the river.

5. The letter you never opened.

6. The echo of rain threading the balcony rails.

7. A mirror that reflects a room that isn’t here. (impossible)

8. One safety pin hooked to another.

9. The rust-taste of keys pressed to the tongue.

10. A dry jasmine string, still begging.

11. ~Your spare house key.~

12. That unbroken promise folded beneath a coin.

13. A blue feather that refuses dust.

14. A scarf that remembers more than it frays.

This is what you forgot to take with you.

~ Oizys.

NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 4 — Duplex of Two Places

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).

Duplex of Two Places

1. Between riverbank brickwork, a doorway waits.

2. I stood where its threshold never learned my name.

3. I stand where its threshold never learned my name,

4. a skyline whispering through glass corridors.

5. A skyline whispers through glass corridors,

6. as if every elevator once descended into rain.

7. As if every elevator would descend into rain,

8. the pavements bargain for heat after midnight.

9. Pavements would bargain for heat after midnight,

10. though the river swears it ran colder here.

11. The river swore it will run colder here,

12. a promise folded into a stranger’s sleeve.

13. A promise folds into a stranger’s sleeve,

14. where the riverbank doorway waits.

~ Oizys.

NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 3 — Corrigenda Crown

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.

Corrigenda Crown

I
p. 0, l. 1 — for “first light” read “false start.”
Index — delete “A.”; insert “Unnamed.”
n. 1 — “father” garbled; retype as “a voice leaving a room.”
Appendix — misunderstanding of dates; reorder heartbreak → spring → birth.
Colophon — “home” should read “doorway I never crossed.”
Refrain: This will have to do.

II
Doorplate — “key” should read “key returned.”
p. 7, l. 3 — for “gift” read “loan, briefly honored.”
n. 2 — add “ticket stub, printed wrong city in bold.”
Folio ∞ — shelves mislabeled; memory placed under “misc. regrets.”
Inventory — strike “souvenir”; set “evidence.”
Refrain: This will have to do,

III
Map — “sea” should read “loud reservoir fenced against swimmers.”
p. 12, l. 4 — for “stormcloud” read “forecast that never came.”
Index — delete “north”; insert “somewhere wetter.”
n. 3 — “June wind” mismeasured; correct to “shy & insufficient.”
Atlas — river mouth misplaced; find it in your throat.
Refrain: This will have to, do.

IV
p. 15 — “I said” should read “I rehearsed.”
Quotation — remove quotes; the truth walked out mid-sentence.
n. 4a — sentimental tone flagged; re-tag as “audited apology.”
Corrigendum — “stay” should read “I might have stayed.”
p. ∞ — misprint of silence; index as “statement.”
Refrain: This will have to undo.

V
Calendar — “spring” overstated; set “late, late.”
p. 20, l. 1 — for “in time” read “out of phase.”
Season notes — monsoon should read “private weather.”
Index — shift “now” to “only once.”
Erratum slip — recall misdated grief; set to “ongoing.”
Refrain: This will have not to do.

VI
n. 5 — “pulse” undercounted; include extra beats from fear.
p. 24 — strike “posture”; set “leaning toward absence.”
Colophon — “skin” spelled wrong; meant “warning.”
Body text — for “breath held” read “breath re-negotiated.”
Appendix — miracles are out of stock; substitute quiet.
Refrain: This will have to un-do.

VII
Title — for “Corrigenda” read “Relearning.”
Author — for “the witness” read “the one who admits.”
Dedication — delete “to no one”; insert “to the late self.”
Date — misprinted; list as “ongoing, with amendments.”
Colophon — please reshelve joy under “possible.”
Refrain: This will have to do. (return, earned)

NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 2 — “Errata Sonnet”

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.

Errata Sonnet

1. p. 3, l. 1 — for “November” read “late rain.”

2. p. 5, l. 9 — “origin” should read “ongoing.”

3. p. V — substitute “joy” with “quiet compliance.”

4. p. 7 — name “M.” to read “M——.”

5. p. 8, l. 4 — “home” [sic].

6. p. 9 — strike “always”; set “sometimes.”

7. p. 13, l. 2 — for “bruise” read “ink.”

8. p. ∞ — insert “the train never stopped.”

9. p. 21 — “you left” should read “you were already gone.”

10. p. 26, l. 6 — punctuation fails; keep the breath (just hold it).

11. p. 30 — restore “mercy” despite misprint (typesetter wept).

12. p. 31 — the line breaks itself; leave as is.

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

14. Colophon — for “Errata Sonnet (2025)” read “Uncorrectable.”

NovPoWriMo 2025: Day 1 — “Palimpsest of Self.”

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]”.

Palimpsest of Self

I wake in the script archive of morning,
where names faces have been rubbed thin—
the sky air held open by a quiet threshold corridor
I once called something else.

A faint halo ember hides beneath the margin ledger—
tattooed over with fresh window panel,
still echoing the lost garden orchard
I once carried behind my teeth pulse.

I am stitched to the old harbor crossroads,
its syllables letters flaking like tired gold copper—
beneath it, the first mirror window 
shakes, blurred, still breathing.

Strike through the map compass I thought was mine—
the route path curls back, a coy revenant stranger;
in the dusted palaces chambers of season weather,
ghosts shadows gossip their new pronouns.

The parchment vellum remembers what I forget—
the scraped salt sugar,
the unwritten child echo,
the shadow wrist finger I tried to trade.

Even now, the oldest threshold corridor waits
half-buried in the warm wind current—
rewriting me, line by line,
quiet as a vow truce.

—I swear I’ve been here before, but under another ink breath.
Palimpsest after 2025

~ Oizys.

The No November Miracle: The First-Morning // The Audit of Beginnings

8.05AM

There’s a kind of hush that only the first morning of a new month understands. The sky hasn’t had its tea yet. The neighbourhood dogs are still negotiating with the sun. And I’m standing at my window, inventorying the quiet with a fresh schema: field by field, feeling by feeling. November is famous for slow arrivals, cooler air, earlier evenings, festivals packing their bags and checking into the calendar. But beneath the shawl of all that softness, there’s a crispness that means business. It’s a peer review for our routines. Quarter-end energy without the spreadsheets. A town hall where the only agenda item is: What are you building next? There’s a certain theatre on the 1st of the month. This month. The month of November. We print new calendars like they’re absolution. But the truth is a quieter accountant. She opens the same worn ledger, clears her throat, and asks what you’re carrying forward. I never understood why people revered Mondays to be miracles. They’re maintenance. Which is honestly more merciful? I like beginnings that don’t shout. I like the low-battery calm of a dawn that makes you listen before you move.

I woke up extremely early, which is not a November miracle because of my recent messy sleep schedule. And, after my mother left for her morning walk to the temple, I locked myself in the room and mouthed the poem in silence by tearing the throat while the poet thundered at full volume in my earbuds.

The Audit of Beginnings

At 5:59, the sky is a draft
nobody signed,
a thin blue memo stapled to the east.

The kettle coughs,
steam filing its report.
My mug takes minutes like a junior analyst:
first sip, second doubt, third resolve.

I itemize the ghosts:
the laugh I owed a friend,
the text I didn’t send,
the door I closed so softly it learned to apologize.

On page one of the month, I try a new font...
brave...
then write smaller to save space for revision.

Outside, sparrows convene a standup.
Agenda: survival, crumbs, choreography.
They do not pitch rebrands.
They repeat what works.

I’ve been told to “seize the day.”
I prefer to sign for it:
name, date, a promise to store it properly...
cool, dark, away from noise.

Regret walks in late,
drops a folder marked “URGENT”:
all the things I could have done with yesterday’s quiet.
I initial each page,
file under Lessons, Non-Perishable.

The sun clocks in, unshowy.
Light spills like an honest spreadsheet,
columns of mercy, rows of routine,
no macro for courage,
just cells you fill by hand.

And if grace arrives, it is never dramatic.
It looks like rinsing the cup,
like making the bed,
like choosing the smaller heroics first.

By 6:40, the ledger closes.
Not balanced, not perfect—auditable.
I rubber-stamp the morning:
In Progress.

On the margin, I leave a note to self:
Forget clean slates.
Keep clean tools.
Carry forward what hums.
Write today in a legible hand.

— Oizys.

My self-started project of #NovPoWriMo 2025 starts today. I keep thinking about it. The jitteriness of starting something that I oh-so-enthusiastically prepared for. I have, so far, written prompts for fourteen days. I still need to research, craft, and finalise for the rest of the days while I write responses now. This is while I am over-burdened with more work at my primary job, with little meagre increase in salary, while I have committed myself to two different volunteering roles and another volunteering position. And, while I have made myself determined to submit three papers that I have been planning and planning. I have to complete writing, researching, editing, and submit the same by the end of November. And, to top it all off, it is November. The season of sadness. The season of my origin. I don’t mean that dramatically, like no violins, no slow zoom. Just the plain fact that November is where so many beginnings in my life decided to masquerade as endings. Or maybe they were endings, and I recycled the scraps into new first pages, the way thrifty gods make new worlds out of leftover clay. It’s strange. Some months arrive like vendors... peddling light, mangoes, monsoon gossip. But November comes as an auditor. No welcome kit. Just a swivel chair, a pen that clicks too loud, and questions about expenditures of the heart. What have you loved? What did you abandon? Why is your joy always on deferred payment terms? Why is sorrow so liquid in your books? You can’t negotiate with November; it’s already read the footnotes. It knows exactly how many revisions you promised yourself. It knows how many you completed. It knows why your margins look haunted. There’s a baseline melancholy that drags behind me like a poorly archived PDF. If joy arrives, it does so as a footnote like that tiny font, cautious, subject to peer review. Meanwhile, grief gets top billing, bolded, left-aligned. The formatting is biased.

I keep thinking I chose poetry. But days like these make me suspect poetry chose me because I am structurally unsound enough to house it. The beams creak, the roof leaks, but the acoustics are impeccable. Tragedy loves echo, and I’m nothing if not compliant real estate. Then, the month reminds me like a stern manager that I am the one who made this month louder. I volunteered for the noise:

the poems, the papers, the promises. I scheduled my own chaos and then acted surprised when the meeting invite turned up. Productivity theatre is seductive. It makes you think you’re inching towards greatness when you’re actually just tap-dancing in place. Still, some motion is better than freefall. Right? I don’t know.

That’s the part honesty keeps underlined. A reasonable person would scale back.

Pick one commitment, maybe two. Negotiate scope. But I’ve never been good at being reasonable. It feels like a language I can read but not speak. Besides, even if I quit everything, November would still show up, arms crossed, asking for the missing receipts. My accountant-ghost would still demand line items: Who have you become? Where is your proof? Why is the joy ledger still under construction? I think about childhood, how November smelled like old notebooks and burnt incense. How mornings tasted like cold water and oblivion. How the future looked like a given-up spreadsheet with too many errors, too many hidden cells. I was convinced I was going to just scratch the rock bottom with my fingernails for the rest of my life. Laughable and a bit endearing. Now, I believe that November isn’t sad because of the weather or memory. It’s sad because it’s honest. It just reports. The season of my origin. Yes.

6.30PM

Anyway, I made some sandwiches and I ate and fell asleep at around 11AM and woke up at 6PM. My sister told me she had brought some snacks, which we then had, that gave the inside of my mouth a peeling reaction due to the texture and oil. Anyway, it was not that bad. Thank god, I did not eat a lot. I followed it up with some ripe papaya, which soothed the peelings and then of course some tea. The evening just went by like that.

11:30PM

I thought of some other snacks that were leftover, and I ate the remaining of them. While doing the same, I came across a new poem by the poet that I was blasting this morning, and she was reciting a new poem of hers at a big place. It was a chilling recital. Watching that sent me to a downward spiral as usual, which is the case whenever I see people doing something that I always imagine myself doing. I knew better than to click play, but curiosity is an indulgence with no spending cap.

So there I was, sitting under the 12AM haze, watching her stand under a too-bright spotlight that made her look built of vowels and inevitability. She wasn’t extraordinary; she was simply doing it. That’s the part that kills me every time.

The ease of it. The way her breath seemed to know where to go before the line arrived. Like the poem was muscle memory. Like living well had trained the body to speak without flinching. Meanwhile, I sat cross-legged on my bed, clutching my phone like a confession. I envied her composure. I envied her strange, casual intimacy with the room. I envied (ugh, the dirtiest word) the applause that came after. And beneath the envy: that old, disgusting little certainty... that I am not enough to write like her, not enough to speak like her. I envied her strange, casual intimacy with the room. (and I hated how quickly I decided I wasn’t built for that) The feeling arrived like oil on the tongue, coating, rancid, not enough to write like her, not enough to speak like her. Not because I want to be worshipped. (Let’s be honest, I would hate it and bury myself in my cot forever.) But because I want to know what it feels like to read a poem out loud and not shake like a cheap lightbulb in a storm. For a moment, the room went small. The walls leaned in with unsolicited advice. My sister was somewhere in the house watching reels of people folding sweaters, and my mother was softly snoring next to me. The fan hummed its lukewarm empathy. And I just… sat there. Every insecurity came out like a full audit team. Credentials, receipts, performance metrics.

“Are you really writing?” 

“If you were serious, wouldn’t you be further by now?”

“What do these pages amount to?” 

Blah blah blah.

Not enough, not yet.

Not enough, not yet.

I am not enough not enough yet to write like her, speak like her.

(I refuse the period. I keep the yet.)

My inner critic needs a vacation or at least a performance improvement plan. I keep forgetting that envy is just longing with a bad posture. It hunches. It mumbles. It wants to be seen but shows up in the wrong outfit. The recital ended, the applause rolled out, and the video cut to silence. I stared at the black screen, caught somewhere between wanting to write and wanting to throw my notebook out the window and become a tree. Trees don’t submit papers. Trees don’t volunteer for five things. Trees don’t negotiate with November. Anyway.

I got up. Rinsed my face. Sometimes you have to perform care until it believes you. Outside, the night felt like a misplaced comma. The sky couldn’t decide whether to brood or bloom. A few kids in the street were bursting cheap firecrackers left over from the last festival... late submissions, just like me. Their laughter was shrill and uncomplicated. I envied that too, but less aggressively.

My inbox, of course, had opinions. A gentle reminder here. A needy (timely!) reminder there. I swear, digital life has more alarms than wisdom. I opened my laptop, thinking I would write, but instead I ended up scrolling:

submission guidelines,

poetry blogs,

deadlines,

call-for-papers,

CV advice,

somebody’s thread on “how to get your life together by 25.” [Oh my god.]

Too late.

Next slide.

Then I caught myself spiralling into the familiar narrative:

Everyone is ahead.

I am late to my own life.

I have wasted too much time.

I am running behind a train, and I am not even sure I want to board.

And then, by some small mercy, maybe the leftover tea, maybe the leftover courage, I stopped. I forcibly, non-consentingly, involuntarily reminded myself:
No one can occupy my timeline.
Not even me, if I keep comparing it to someone else’s.
The poem that the woman read onstage was hers, born of her very specific wounds.
My poems are born of mine.
There is no competition here except survival.

So I closed the tabs. Turned off the fan. Grabbed my notebook, even though my hands were trembling like they were rehearsing an earthquake. I wrote... slowly, badly, honestly. I wrote the kind of draft that looks like it needs medication. The kind of draft that apologises as soon as it arrives. But a draft is a draft. It lives. And I think that counts. I had some work to do for one of my volunteering roles, which I completed successfully. I had two submissions to make for one of my volunteering roles, in one of which I had to severely cut off my words for the submission. It hurt me a bit, but I did it. The night grew colder. I switched off the lights and sat in the dark, waiting for some grand epiphany. Of course, nothing came. Epiphanies work flexi-hours. They respect no service level agreement. All I got was a thin whisper: Carry forward what hums. The disgust doesn’t vanish, but I have to carry forward with hope that it just relabels from Verdict to Variable. I’ll measure again tomorrow. So I did. I closed the notebook and my borrowed laptop. Let it rest freely on my table like a small, warm cat who unapologetically takes her space. And I slept... not peacefully, not dramatically, but enough. November will pry my ribs open again tomorrow. It always does. But maybe this time I’ll be ready with sharper tools. Hope I do.

I am not enough like her; I am enough like me if I keep showing up.

~ Oizys.