by the Read Write Poem Staff
Nelle Lytle encourages you to keep going with your NaPoWriMo poems by writing inside-out or outside-in. She says:
I watch too much HGTV, so I have learned (very well) about bringing the outdoors inside and also turning outside spaces into rooms (which is, apparently, more than putting the old sofa out on the front porch).
In our case, writing inside out (or outside in) means setting your physical or metaphorical inner bits out of doors, to be walked around and looked at from odd angles, as if they were monuments or mailboxes (as an example). Or it could be transforming your internal organs into flowers or letting a pack of four-year-old’s (human or otherwise) loose in your attic.
Write a poem today that illustrates your idea of what is inside-out. 
Reminders for everyone
Read the Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Challenge Kickoff post for details on how the challenge works — and how you can engage with Read Write Poem this month, no matter what your personal writing challenge is for the month of April.
Please read this page to find out how Read Write Poem’s prompt posts work. Remember that work linked from any post this month is shared in precisely that spirit: sharing, as opposed to critiquing. If you haven’t done so already, please read all the pages under About in the navigation bar.
http://rosettathurman.posterous.com/napowrimo-poem-4-gardenias
Evelyn N. Alfred replied:
April 4th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Interesting ritual and poem Rosetta.
Inside after being Outside
Pungent muskiness of cow parsnip storms my nose
before I leave the rushing onslaught
of Soap Creek under the wooden bridge.
Welcome to spring.
On its way to the Willamette
rain swollen mocha-muddy waters
make moist this land-lane
along its rounded curved banks and bars.
With winds calm, rain gentles fawn lilies and daffodils,
lands with a plop and slides into crenulated,
sharp-tipped lobes.
Rain makes cow parsnips waft odors upwards?
Slowed by scent and sound, I catch
the eye shine of towhee and chick-a-dee
perched on last year’s teasel heads
sheltered under newly leafed rose.
Yet for all this new life and promise
for all this walk in wonder
my soul sails aimlessly, unanchored and lonely
this Easter day without family is not without uncertainty
this rain-coated walk –
unable to steer me to safe harbor
viviblake replied:
April 5th, 2010 at 3:14 am
Some great images here. I particularly liked mocha-muddy waters.
http://motherveg.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/napowrimo-4-inside-out/
my offering
http://tasmith1122.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/rwp-napowrimopoetic-asides-day-4/
My offering for today’s prompt: http://goo.gl/fb/rbiD9
I Hear the Music.
“Labyrinth of Tattered Organs”
Hi all, I am just now jumping in to the challenge, but here is a post to today’s prompt. I hope tomorrow to be able to read some of your wonderful words.
I’m not sure this uploaded the first time: I Hear the Music.
“Proving Myself”
http://makeda42.livejournal.com/60121.html
My version of Inside Out: A World in Which Ed Hardy clothes are actually cool, and not just worn by Dougebags…
Love Kills Slowly
In this odd small world
Supreme Court Justice
Kermit the Frog announces
we will no longer wait
for anyone to quietly
accept the judgment
of skulls wearing top hats.
Instead, we will conduct
interviews with anyone
who’s smelled the roses
on the long-sleeve t-shirt,
which claims that “Love
Kills Slowly,” the way everything
becomes more important
simply because we’re told it is
and we choose to believe.
Skewed
http://vanessavaile.posterous.com/wripo-4-skewed
wasn’t feeling today’s prompt (sorry!), but wrote something anyway…
http://meetinggrace.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/napowrimo-4/
Tug and Pull
April 4, 2010
Somehow,
when I wasn’t looking,
you learned to brush
your own hair.
You stretch your neck
just so, arching like
those women in movies
we won’t let you watch.
You tug without pulling,
pull without tugging,
and the tangles give way
like yellow grasses
bending for a breeze.
I squint at your reflection,
trying to find the face,
eager for Easter,
I saw this morning,
but all I see is your
concentration,
your competence,
your confidence;
the face of a kid
superimposed
on the face of my child.
So tonight,
when you gruffly
grabbed the brush
and said, “Daddy,
let me do it myself,”
I thought I heard you say,
“Daddy, I don’t
need you anymore.”
Here is my # 4, Held Back:
http://brokeness.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-4-held-back.html
Ugh. So tired tonight. It took me forever to find inspiration and actually start writing.
This one’s pretty blatantly inspired by the prompt, but I had a lot of fun writing it.
http://self-intoxication.deviantart.com/art/Ephemera-159617106
http://ingeborgsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-april-4th-inside-out.html
http://seashelllz.livejournal.com/113135.html
Still having blog issues with a custom domain, so I’m posting here.
I didn’t follow the prompt. As the kids finished dying eyes on Saturday, my youngest approached me to show off his favorite egg. Here’s my response:
Easter Life
Proudly he shows his egg
dyed greenly-blue–
a small earth
of continents and seas
enclosed in his palm.
Child, you hold a world:
beneath colored surface
the boiled skin glistens whitely,
encircling sterilized yolk–
a life once possible.
Your life, mine–
all life now possible,
enclosed in His palm
because,
as sun peeps between hills
the stone unhinges,
revealing His deserted tomb.
http://thebooklife.wordpress.com/2010/04/05/4-4/
Hymn To Mother Ostara
Angeliad of Surazeus
2010 04 04
http://open.salon.com/blog/surazeus/2010/04/04/hymn_to_mother_ostara
Daughter of Ishtar who creates new life
come in darkness of long winter sleep
and cast rays of light to warm our hearts
to wake souls from sleep in frozen snow.
Descend on beams of glowing sunlight
sweet mother Ostara who gives new life
and kiss our hearts with your apple lips
to wake souls from sleep in frozen snow.
Spirit of Inanna creator of life after death
scatter seeds to sprout flowers and trees
in soil of our hearts warmed by your kiss
to wake souls from sleep in frozen snow.
Complete poem here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/surazeus/2010/04/04/hymn_to_mother_ostara
Dreams are daytime life
Reality comes at dusk
Nightmares don’t exist
http://lizshine.blogspot.com/2010/04/rwpday-4inside-out.html
Inside Outside
Precious little girl
First we play inside
Then we play outside
Then we have to come back out
I glory in her energy
Her determination in youth
Her energy restores me
Vibrance I had lost
Young in spirit
I celebrate a rock thrown into the water
Weeding becomes a project
Bonds us in memory forever
While my old, aching body
Remembers working together
Back indoors we go
Snack time
Can you feel it?
Vibrating up to the universe
My soul sings in joy
My morning coffee
a generation of underpaid immigrant workers
burning the back of my throat.