NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 22] - Internal Affairs

NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 22]

Day Twenty-Two

Happy Wednesday, everybody, and welcome back for Day 22 of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Our featured participant for the day is 7eyedwonder, where the response to Day 21’s names-and-nicknames prompt brings us a lovely riff on the on the Shakespearean phrase, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Today’s resource is The Kelly Writers House’s system of online book groups. At any given time, the Philadelpia-based center has a number of different book/discussion groups going on, and all you need to participate is an email address and a willingness to engage in a discussion of a specific group’s chosen book or set of poems.

And now for our (optional) prompt! Jaswinder Bolina’s poem “Mood Ring” imagines the speaker as both himself and an interior being (who happens to take the form of a small donkey). It’s quite silly . . . and not silly at the same time. A sort of “serious fun.” Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem in which the speaker is in dialogue with him or herself.

Happy writing!

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Internal Affairs

There are two of us in here.

This is already a problem.

—

“I think we should begin calmly,” I say,
like someone who has never once
been calm.

She laughs.
Not kindly.

—

You always do this, she says.
You make a structure
and then you live inside it
like it’s not a cage.

It’s not a cage, I say.
It’s a form.

Oh, she says.
Does it open?

—

We sit with that.

Or rather, I sit.
She paces.
She has always been better
with movement.

—

What do you want, I ask her.
She says: not this.
Which is not helpful.
Which is extremely accurate.

—

You wanted to be good, she reminds me.
You wanted to be chosen.
You wanted:

I know what I wanted, I snap,
too quickly.

She raises an eyebrow I cannot see
but feel.

—

There are things you say in poems,
she continues,
that you do not permit in life.

That’s called craft, I say.

That’s called fear, she says.

—

We take a break from each other
by not speaking.

It does not work.

—

At some point, I try to reason with her.

If we fall apart, I say,
who exactly is supposed to write about it?

She considers this.

Then, annoyingly, smiles.

Oh, she says.
I’m not interested in writing about it.

I’m interested in it happening.

—

This is where she becomes dangerous.

This is where I become careful.

—

You think survival is a virtue, she says.

It is, I say.

It’s also a habit, she says.
And not all habits are holy.

—

I do not have a response prepared for that.

This irritates me.

—

Fine, I say. What do you suggest?

She leans in,
closer than I like.

Something small, she says.

Something irreversible.

—

Like what?

She shrugs.

Say the wrong thing.
Refuse something easy.
Stop being impressive.

—

I laugh.

Genuinely.

You’re asking for chaos, I say.

No, she says.
I’m asking for honesty
without rehearsal.

—

We are quiet again.

Which is worse than the arguing.

—

In the end, we compromise.

Which is to say,
I write this down.

And she lets me.

For now.

—

But as I finish, she says;
softly, almost politely:

This is still you controlling the narrative.

—

I don’t answer.

I don’t know if I can.

—

Tomorrow, she says,
we try it my way.

~ Oizys.

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

NaPoWriMo 2026 [April 21]

Day Twenty-One

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

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

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

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

Happy writing!

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

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Names for a Thing That Refuses to Stay Named

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

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

(nothing moves if it is named properly)

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

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

(inventory prefers smaller labels)

Little one.
Good girl.
Be easier to keep.

(easier to sort, easier to keep)

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

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

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

Difficult.
Too much.
Unbecoming.

(unbecoming what?)
(unbecoming to whom?)

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

Stranger still
how it learns to answer for you.

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

I tried on others in secret.

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

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

(rooms have borders)
(borders have names)

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

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

I am not sure which one is mine now.

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

(entry is always easier than exit)

But there are others now,
less obedient.

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

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

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

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

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

~ Oizys.