April 2024: a Poem a Day
I recently shared here all the poems I wrote in Spanish during April's a-poem-a-day challenge, here are the ones I wrote in English! / Los poemas que escribí en inglés este mes de abril!
Hello, my lichens.
Places you can listen to today’s episode:
right here! ⬇️
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I determined the best way I could compile and show you all the poems I wrote for Escapril 2024 would be putting them on a newsletter issue, so here we are!
In case you don’t know what Escapril is: April is the US’ National Poetry Month, and many authors celebrate it by sharing poetry prompts, like Savannah Brown (one of my favorite authors!). I’ve been participating in Escapril for four years, and although the first ones I wrote each poem in a language and translated it to another (Spanish to English or the other way around), these last editions I’ve just been writing each poem in the language that the poem asked, not translating them. I like the accessibility factor of translating every piece, but it’s just so much work…
I’ve been sharing the new poems on my instagram and facebook, but I like the idea of having them all together here, accessible too for anyone who doesn’t use social media (which I respect a lot). Ok, here are all the poems I wrote in English for Escapril 2024:
#escapril day 1: change of state
[TW: mention of blood, bone, skin picking haha ope]
On recently turning 32, using Patricia Smith's legendary 13 Ways of Looking at 13 as starting point, although my form is not as cool (that poem has 13-syllable lines, 13 lines per stanza, 13 stanzas 🛐).
#escapril day 2: the internet
What would become of me without the invaluable comments bots make on some of my poems and drawings! Poor things are permanently confused about me... I'm just multidisciplinary, relax.
#escapril day 3: eye contact
The prompt instantly made me think of Robert Wood Lynn's How to Maintain Eye Contact 🦝, so I borrowed the title plus two lines from the poem In Praise of Lying to Children Specifically. This is quite cyberpunk/neurodivergent-coded though 🤖.
#escapril day 4: trip
this made me think of FKA twigs’ Honda, one of those songs I don’t relate to at all (riding motorbikes, smoking weed, etc.) but drawns me in irrevocably. [beware it has some veiled horniness in it.]
#escapril day 5: spiral
[TW: allusion to suicide and violence, mention of blood and bones]
The prompt made me think of True Detective: Night Country, so I kind of projected myself onto four of the characters (the ones played by Aka Niviâna, Nivi Pedersen, Kali Reis, Fiona Shaw) and only mention spirals in passing... But welp, prompts are just starting points, right? The poem is not super-spoilery, so I'd say you can read it without having watched the show (watch it if you haven't though) ❄️.
#escapril day 7: portrait
[TW: blood, implied violence] this one is about exposing your every secret to the audience and them not looking so impressed, after The Last Dinner Party’s Portrait of a Dead Girl.
#escapril day 11: posture [here understood as political posture].
#escapril day 12: oh, the light!
cat poem after Michael Leong’s For My Cats Gaspara & Alfonsina.
#escapril day 13: purr
Two cat poems two days in a row, yes; sue me. In fact I wasn't in a writing mood today, so I decided to post this piece I wrote during Megan Falley's Poems That Don’t Suck course. Also Amie Mcnee put in my brain the notion that it's okay to share your old art, so let's #promoteyourartapril, yes?
#escapril day 15: beach
A black-out poem from a randomly picked out government workers-rights-and-duties website + that meme from the Barbie movie, yes.
#escapril day 18: truth
Wrote this one the previous night during the Circle Greg hosted. Gracias always, Greg (he's not a polar bear, he's pretty amazing though) <3. So much depressions, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, particle physics, and overall how hard being human and knowing it can get 🙃✨.
#escapril day 19: a reminder
[TW: allusion to death and sex; Baroque stuff, haha.]
I actually wrote this one in Nei Hilborn's Writing Circle a while ago, but when I actually got to editting it I felt like amping up the painting references; if you study fine arts you take any chance available to display your knowledge, right? At least I do; four years of my life not counting the masters... Anyway, I love still-lifes, specially mundane ones, and the Baroque with the memento mori vibes ones are pretty cool. I could paint this sometime!
#escapril day 22: desire
All caught up with Escapril after being behind for a few days. All emotionally mature (not really, or only about some stuff).
#escapril day 24: unexpected transmission
First thing that came to mind was The Bloop. It's a low frequency sound first thought to be some unknown-deep-sea-creature chanting, probably ice blocks moving, but give it a listen and tell me you don't want it to be a mystery because, as dear Neil Hilborn said once: [as a poet, you have to be] horny for the unknown. And I ended up including The Bloop in a genesis narrative: a story about the beginning of the world 🌊🔥🌏.
#escapril day 25: dark secret
Wrote this one the previous day for Neil Hilborn's Writing Circle. Took the chance to mix today's Escapril prompt with Neil's: what would happen if everything terrible your brain thinks is true or will happen is actually true or will happen. The point was to follow Ada Limón's The Conditional, and end on an uplifting note, but I couldn't find how to lift this up, sooooo here it is! The book I mention in which books have sex with each other is
#escapril day 27: the absolute limit
Neil Hilborn cannot stop coming up with the best prompts; I wrote this one also on his Writing Circle. The prompt was basically write about somewhere you've never been to, maybe some imaginary place, where everything is better. Describe it. And yes: I decided Spring is a he 🌺. This is written after e.e. cummings’ somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond:
The last three poems of the month I decided to write in Spanish, so that was all for today’s issue! I hope you enjoyed reading these, or that you read them in the future (I know it’s a lot).
Thank you
to all my subscribers (there are a few new ones, hi!), my unofficial Patron of the Arts (Nacho), my unofficial beta-reader (Raúl), and extra thank-yous to my Patrons (Lary, Jorge, Rufi, Lucía, Cat DuFoe, Ari, Manuel, and Víctor) for being such stunning and giving humans. Join me on Patreon to read my wip poems, see my full drawing-sessions (actual nude drawings, sans instagram prude censorship), and more stuff I’m afraid to share anywhere else. All for as little as 1€/1’50$ a month, every Patron gets access to every post.
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