Today is Day 1 of NaPoWriMo 2026, and I wrote a tanka, as prompted by https://www.napowrimo.net/go/.
I Worry
By Candace Shultz
Shadows whisper in
between the dark spaces of
one thought to the next.
I reach for rays of hope as
worries delve deep in my mind.
Today is the last day of NaPoWriMo 2024! For my final poem this month, I followed the prompt to compare or identify the speaker of my poem with someone from myth. I compared my speaker with a goddess of the day, who I considered in my mind to be Hemera (Greek mythology) or even Eos (goddess of the dawn). I hope you enjoy my last poem of NaPoWriMo 2024!
A Good Night's Sleep
By Candace Shultz
Oh, Hypnos, god of slumber,
Come carry me off into the deep
Embrace of Mother Nature's umber
Earth and verdant greenery.
Allow me the deep dark abyss of sleep.
Goddess Nyx has brought the night.
Morpheus waits to bring me a dream.
Let me bask in the heavenly starlight
And rest like a sleeping beauty
Until kissed by a morning sunbeam.
Then the sleepy dust will leave my eyes
As I awake with a yawn.
From my slumber I will rise
Like a goddess of the day,
Shining bright as I greet the dawn.
Let the beauty of the night
Give way to morning's light.
You can find today's NaPoWriMo prompt here, but basically I had to choose one word out of a list of ten words to use as the title for my poem. I chose the word incandescent. My poem is a haiku.
Incandescent
By Candace Shultz
At the end of day
when the sun's incandescence
disappears, I sleep
Today's NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a sijo, which is a Korean verse form with three lines consisting of 14-16 syllables each. The following poem is my attempt at writing a sijo.
Sun-Kissed
By Candace Shultz
The sun beats down on her skin and smothers her with its heat.
Her bare skin reddens and burns under the glare of harsh yellow rays.
She rolls onto her stomach and sighs. For beauty she would die.
The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write an American sonnet, which has 14 lines likes a traditional sonnet, but doesn't have a rhyme scheme or meter. Here is my attempt at writing an American sonnet.
A Mother's Love
By Candace Shultz
A picture on the wall of fragmented flowers
With purple petals and dark green leaves
Stuck together one sticker at a time,
A purple painting with smiling clouds
Placed beside a poem written with love,
Purple thistles and red dandelions drawn
Next to red roses painted with celery ends:
A collage of art created by youthful exuberance
Embraced and displayed by a mother's love
For her children, a love with no limits.
If the sky were a canvas, she would fill it
With pictures and paintings and poetry
And all the creations of her children
To show her love and joy for them to the world.
For today's NaPoWriMo prompt, we were challenged to include alliteration, consonance, and assonance in our poems. I enjoy using alliteration (repetition of a consonant at the beginning of words), so my poem uses that technique a lot, but I did try to use consonance (repetition of consonant sound elsewhere in words) and assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) as well. I hope you enjoy my poem.
I do not know what to write.
Why would you wish this on me?
You being myself as I stare at the screen,
Sullen and cross, cursing myself for promising
Poetry for all of April, even if I promised myself
And no one else. Yet I yearn to do better.
To write better. Write more. For I can't succeed
If I don't even try. I need these days of poetry
To remind myself that I am a writer even if
Some days my words drown with the dirty dishes
And months melt away in the summer heat
Where not a single sentence meets pen or paper
And winter wreaks havoc on my hurting hands.
They crack and bleed burying my need to create
Until springtime thaws my thoughts and I want
To write words again, to put them to pencil.
In the month of April, poetry pours forth
From my mind until I have nothing left.
For Day 25 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt talked about answering questions on a Proust Questionnaire. I decided to respond to only one question in my poem. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I sometimes wish I was more of an extrovert. I'd like to be more outgoing and more comfortable in crowds and talking with lots of people. However, I understand myself enough to know I feel much more comfortable talking to only one or two people at a time, and that it's perfectly fine to be a shy introvert. I hope you enjoy my poem.
A Shy Introvert
By Candace Shultz
In a sea of faces
Your heart races.
Everything's just a blur.
Your mind is a saboteur:
It fills you with doubt,
Urging you to get out.
You will be fine.
You just need to realign.
Breathe as you move through the crowd.
Stay calm even though it's loud.
Withdraw to a quieter place.
Find peace in a different space.
When there's less people all around,
When your heart has finally calmed down,
Relax and give yourself grace.
Allow a mental embrace.
You don't have to change who you are.
You don't have to carry shyness like a scar.
Be true to yourself, and you'll be a star.
