True Value of Life

Day-11

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt: Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own erasure/blackout poem. You could use a page from a favorite book, a magazine, or what have you. It can be especially fun to play with a book you don’t know, particularly one that deals with an unfamiliar topic. If you’d like to go that route, maybe you’ll find something of interest in the thousands of scanned books at the Internet Archive? Feel free to maintain the whitespace of the original text (as is traditional for erasures/blackouts... if anything can be called traditional about them) or to pluck words/phrases from your chosen source material and rearrange them.

Life serves man

realize values

opportunity

fulfillment.

Experiencing nature

purpose of high

moral behaviour.

Creative life

life of enjoyment.

Meaning in life,

suffering, part of life

even fate and death

without suffering

cannot be complete.

I recently completed reading " Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl. What a powerful book. It lifts one's spirit to a higher order. Pain cannot be separated from existence. It makes one stronger to face every challenge in life with determination.

Here is the original excerpt:

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Desire

Day-10

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt:  In his poem, “Goodbye,” Geoffrey Brock describes grief in three short stanzas, the second of which is entirely made up of a rhetorical dialogue. Today, write your own meditation on grief. Try using Brock’s form as the “container” for your poem: a few short stanzas, with a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.

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We are chained to a time frame

Tied in a grip of lost moments

Across the barbed wire, our hearts 

Whisper each other's name.

(Do you miss me? You do love,

with salt in your eyes. Breathe again.

Do you miss me? Hope you have an

image to carry to your grave.)

Missing you makes the heart bleed.

Time has wrapped all,

the pain in a bottle, before the fall,

aching with the lingering need.

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Ginu

 Day-9

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt:  Marianne Moore was a well-known modernist poet with a curious taste in hats. Though she wrote on many themes, I’ve always had some affection for her many poems about – or in the voice of – animals, such as “The Fish,” “Dock Rats,” “The Pangolin,” and “No Swan so Fine.” Today, try writing your own poem in the voice of an animal or plant, or a poem that describes a specific animal or plant with references to historical events or scientific facts.

Longing to write

For so long, it hurts

How long has it been?

Three months?

It feels as if time has stood still 

I miss you, my beautiful girl

Your soft, bluish brownish,

 beautiful eyes, adoringly

asking to smooth your 

cuddly fur, and rub your belly.

My shiny black beauty

I miss you every day

Laddu finds it difficult

to go for walks alone with Papa

he searches every corner 

you were yin and yang, but

 fiercely loved each other

He misses you 

The house feels empty

without your pranks

barking at the crows

chasing the birds and lizards

the slightest noise 

made your ears perk.

 You brought so much joy

 caring and ferocious 

thirteen years of

unconditional love

We miss you 

My students

 neighbours, friends, and family

cannot stop asking,

"Where is Ginu?"

With a huge lump in my throat

and a tight knot in my chest

I say," Ginu at the rainbow bridge

waiting for me on the other side."

We all miss you.

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Time Zone

 Day-8

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt: Here’s our optional prompt for the day! In his poem, “Poet, No Thanks,” Jean D’Amérique repeats the phrase “I wasn’t a poet” multiple times, while describing other things that he instead claims to have been. In your poem for today, use a simple phrase repeatedly, and then make statements that invert or contradict that phrase.

  

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Fifties and still struggling

to find the perfect launching

dreamer to the core

sounding very obscure

Like a mirage.

Decades of working through the bones

pushing down the aches and scorns

trying standing tall

in the face of a broken wall

Like a mirage.

Visualizing her younger self

full of dreams in her eyes

carefree and filled with life

chasing stars on tiptoes 

Like a mirage.

She remembers the happy days

young and strong and beautiful too

now, broken and shattered

with a crisscrossed road map marked

Like a mirage.

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Happy Times

 Day-7

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt: In her poem, “Front Yard Rhyme,” Cecily Parks evokes the sing-songy beats that accompany girls’ clapping games, and jump-rope and skipping rhymes. Today, we challenge you to write your own poem that emulates these songs – something to snap, clap, and jump around to.

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Holidays!

Clear skies

Neighbourhood's kids

Ready to take the bite

All gather in the bylanes

The boys with cricket bats

Some boys on the bicycles 

The lovely pigtailed girls

Just below my balcony plays

Hide and seek

Here they go...

Selecting the chaser

"Aah Mina, aah Mina (Chorus)

Kaccha mina, kaccha mina(claps)

Sing a song

Ding a dong (claps)

Carrom board

Barram board

STOP!

I watch them with 

A raptured smile

Blessed childhood.

And I sing!

Eina mina myna moe

Catch the bad boy by his toes

If he cries, let him go

Eina mina myna moe.

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Timeless

 Day-6

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt: In your poem today, try writing with a breezy, conversational tone, while including at least one thing that could only happen in a dream.

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A sudden shift

 Unannounced

The moods are on a swing

Enough!

Enough for today

A faded look in the eyes

She measures the lifelines

Loneliness cannot be measured

Still, those lifelines speak of

A new dawn on the horizon

As predicted, among 

All the debris and rubbles

It will happen sooner or later

A moment to settle things

Delve into all the ashes

And mountains of rubble

To find specks of peace

Whatever she needs for

Happiness...

A PERFECT SUNRISE!

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Distaste

 Day-5

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt: Today, your challenge is to take a page from Catullus and Darwin, and write a poem in which you talk about disliking something – particularly something utterly innocuous, like clover. Be over the top! Be a bit silly and overdramatic.

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How I hate that slimy thing

Sticky, yucky, and ugly!

The better half never forgets

To get that thing from the market.

But I stay away from it 

As much as I can muster

A courageous denial.

I know, it has medicinal benefits.

It can heal my creaking joints.

If that makes any sense

Considering the emotional

Drama it evokes

Everybody in my house loves it

The sticky, yucky, slimy thing.

Gosh! The smell, the look

Causes my tongue to burn

And my stomach to churn

Why should they name it

After ladies' fingers?

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Season of Flowers

 Day-4

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt: Today, we’d like to challenge you to craft your own short poem that involves a weather phenomenon and some aspect of the season. Try using rhyme and keeping your lines of roughly even length.

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The south-western breeze swirls,

Coolly and joyfully

Touching the window curtains

Spring touches the heart softly.

The senses are awake

As many voices and scents resonate

The koel on the tamrind tree

Singing melodiously,

Warms the cockles of my heart

The thick Jasmine vine

Blooms in my little space

Flowers of many shades, so divine

Livens my happy place.

The tall mango tree sways

Like a sentry in the garden

Laden with blooming fruits

Tempting with the taste of the season.

Celebrating the season, I pick up my watercolors

Filling the blank pages with colors.

Participating in: Napowrimo

The Teacher

Day-3

Napowrimo-2026

Prompt: Today, we challenge you to write a poem in which a profession or vocation is described differently than it is typically considered to be. Perhaps your poem will feature a very relaxed brain surgeon or a farmer who hates vegetables. Or maybe you have a poetical alter-ego of your own, who flies a non-wan, treasure-hunting flag with pride.

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Such blank faces!

Hundreds of them

Innocent and raw

Just out of schools

Walked through the corridors 

Searching for old faces.

They felt lost and confused

Among the strangers.

Then she walked in

Scouting every face

Blank looks stared at her

She smiled, understanding 

Their plight in the citadel of

Learning. It is not easy

To face so many challenges 

In a strange premises.

She geared up to mould the 

Minds, set in an archaic fold

It takes patience and deep 

Sense of belonging

To be in their shoes.

It took her three years. 

Like a potter, polishing

Their beliefs and rustic views 

When the time came

For those young minds to fly

With their heads held high

To face  the world with 

A confident smile,

She watched them from a distance.

She always hid 

In the background 

With so many success stories, 

She herself  lacked the confidence

To face the world. 

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Secrets

 Day-2

NaPoWriMo-2026

Prompt: Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem in which you recount a childhood memory. Try to incorporate a sense of how that experience indicated to you, even then, something about the person you’d grow up to be.

Image: Sneha

Balconies hide many secrets. 

The voices from the past sync in their walls, 

sometimes very sharp and sometimes in muted silences. 

The dead cannot speak, but they have left so many 

whispered secrets within that limited space.

Recalling them leads to echoes of heartbreak and heartache

He never could share his piece without fumbling shyly, 

but she was a vixen, breaking his barriers with her sharp tongue.

The little eyes peeping behind the keyhole

would try to find answers to the sessions of wordy duels. 

There were gesticulations and barrages of obscenities;

 The tiny ears burned with unknown semantics. 

Grown-ups can be very ignorant of the pain 

they cause in the little innocent hearts.

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026

Guns and Roses

 Day-1

Napowrimo-2026

Prompt: Tanka(5/7/5/7/7)

The tanka is an ancient Japanese poetic form. In contemporary English versions, it often takes the shape of a five-line poem with a 5 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 7 syllable-count – kind of like a haiku that decided to keep going.

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She clicks and breathes spring

Her coast is calmer than mine

Loud blasts of bombs,

Debris at my end, I breathe

Choking on reality!

Participating in: NaPoWriMo-2026