#napowrimo #poetry
To get started with today’s prompt, first read Walter de la Mare’s poem “A Song of Enchantment.” Then, John Berryman’s poem “Footing Our Cabin’s Lawn, Before the Wood.” Both poems work very differently, yet leave you with a sense of the near-fantastical possibilities of the landscapes they describe. Try your hand today at writing your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. It could be your grandmother’s backyard, your schoolyard basketball court, or a tiny strip of woods near the railroad tracks. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.
Happy writing!
OUR BACK GARDEN
Our back garden had a green lawn
with a concrete path running
the length of it. My Dad did the
planting, digging and the mowing.
He grew daffodils and tulips in the
spring and sweet williams his
namesake plant and lovely gladioli
in the long, hot summer months.
Yes, the summer months were hot
in those far-off nineteen sixties.
Dressed in shorts and t-shirts we
sunbathed on towels on the grass.
We dug up worms to our Mum's
disgust - Dad laughed with us.
We danced deosil* and widdershins*
singing songs and childhood rhymes.
The smell of sweet williams takes
me back to those carefree childhood days - loving thoughts of my Dad still
dance on the green lawn of my memory.
©🦊VixenOfVerse, 2026
*deosil - clock wise
*widdershins - anti-clockwise
VIXEN of VERSE 