by the Read Write Poem Staff
As a child, Jessica GC says she had two heroes: Wonder Woman and her mother. “To me, they were one and the same,” says Jessica. “Both had long dark hair. Both were strikingly beautiful, and both had incredible strength.”
Write a poem in which you to pay tribute to your hero, past or present.
Here are few possibilities for inspiration:
- What made your childhood hero so special? What traits did you envy? Are super powers involved?
- Do you have more than one hero? Consider drawing a comparison between them.
- Honor the everyday heroes among us — the policemen, the fire fighters, the troops — risking their lives everyday.
- Did your hero ever fall from the pedestal you put him or her on?
- Maybe you’re the hero you want to write about! Have you ever had a moment when someone has made you feel like a hero? Did you ever save a cat from a burning building? Or maybe it was something as simple as staying up all night with a friend who needed you.
In any case, share with us in your poem what made or makes your hero so deserving of admiration.
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.
Uncle Chuck
This one had me stumped for a while. I thought I had no childhood hero until of course I realised how much of a hero I had
.
http://ingeborgsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-april-20th-my-hero.html
Maybe an odd choice for a hero, but I guess I don’t idolize that many people. ^__^
The Boy on Bourbon Street
Here are 3 poems for the price of one. One about a hero, a tanka about an angel, and a “whimsical” one about, well, about Phineas…
NaPoWriMo #20
Not one hero, but two. This fearless duo get high on adrenalin-charged adventure!
“they’re into smoke
they’re into flames
they’re into
death-defying games…”
Read ‘Daredevils’ at http://www.gregoconnell.com
When we speak of heroes
I remember your smile
….
poemsotherwise.blogspot.com
Here’s a couple of homegrown HEROES
My poem is here: http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com
Here’s my Day 20 poem – I didn’t write to a prompt today as “lightbulb moments” didn’t spark anything in me
Pub Quiz
Now I’m off to think about heroes, though I’ve never really had heroes much, tending to see everyone as human, and finding a characteristic or two to admire in most people without putting anyone on a pedestal.
vivienne Blake replied:
April 20th, 2010 at 3:46 am
This is fun. I love the idea of having standard answers, which by the law of averages may be right, like a stopped clock, twice a day!
this one is a little different. my thoughts on the hero poem are at rhymes with zero
some snippets of people
http://crankymango.blogspot.com/2010/04/people.html
I have a Graveyard of Heroes
Day 20…flagging fast.
Here’s one of my childhood heroes.
‘Coming Up for Air’
http://rallentanda.blogspot.com
I didn’t have any personal heroes in my childhood. Maybe my parents, a little, but not for very long. I mean, I still love them but they are not “superhuman” to me any more.
He was his hero, from his first day
He gave him footballs, he made him play.
He twirled him round in a summer breeze.
He taught him math with a certain ease.
To ride a bike and to drive a car
Was shown to him by his only star.
He felt so cared for in all the fun
That he could give the same to his own son.
And only when his father died of age
Was his bond broken, was then turned a page.
He was the hero now, for his own child
Who would be just the same when his son smiled.
And only when old age had made him sage
Was when the hero… did turn to zero
Thanks Stanski for making me look under my nose!
Hero Husband
My hero looks after me
when I am ill
which is often.
He brings me tea,
and pill to kill
the pain
or at least to soften
it to bearable.
He’s out there now,
cutting the lawn,
bless him, riding
his green machine
like a king
derrick replied:
April 20th, 2010 at 5:30 am
This is lovely, Vivienne. I really like the rhymes you’ve included.
rallentanda replied:
April 20th, 2010 at 5:37 am
Delightful Vivienne.
Linda replied:
April 20th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Viv, this is one of the loveliest poems you have ever written. I particularly like
at least to soften
it to bearable.
and
riding
his green machine
like a king
http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com
Just a gentle reminder that the very tropical and topical Writer’s Island with its cozy little grass poet/writer’s shacks opens in 10 days for everyone to come ashore, on May 1st — I’m coming in a hollowed-out sitca spruce…
vivienne Blake replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 8:48 am
Rob, I responded yesterday, to your invitation over on the Writers’ Island site, asking “Please may I come”, but my message is “still awaiting moderation”. Does this mean that you’re having a top level debate about whether I should be allowed in?
ViV
He’s NOT dead, but he is running late at Scrambled, Not Fried.
A second, less personal, poem for the Heroes promps:
Welcome Home
Shrouded biers are borne aloft
from ugly squatting transport planes,
saluted and greeted by their brothers,
with arms aslope in attentioned lines,
and crocodile tears from the suits.
Villagers turn out along the route
to welcome back the fallen.
Where were we when weasel words
of great and good sent
those young soldiers
out to fight?
derrick replied:
April 20th, 2010 at 5:26 am
Very pertinent and moving, Vivienne.
Here’s today’s offering:
http://melrosemusings.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-heroes-napowrimo-day-20.html
vivienne Blake replied:
April 20th, 2010 at 6:51 am
I love the way this makes us look sideways at past heroes, who may not have been so heroic, seen in the cold light of 2010.
Thanks for the prompt! Here’s mine: Batty as a Fruitcake
Regarding the difficulties of living life like Hank Thoreau:
“Roughing It”
http://jasoncrane.org/2010/04/20/poem-roughing-it/
Enjoy!
Jason
p.s. — By now it should be clear that I’m not following any of the prompts and therefore not eligible for inclusion in the anthology. But you’re all so much fun that I’m posting only here. Huzzah!
http://mothersparrow.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/1523/
Prince Steven. Hope you enjoy
.
a quick one, but timely –
http://another2doors.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/space-shuttle-astronaut/
The prompt: a hero
The response: a pair of prose poems. (Maybe I could write a book of portraits of exes.)
http://daily-yawp.blogspot.com/
My today’s entry is about Tori Amos.
http://stiletto.crisopeya.eu/2010/04/20/napowrimo-20-the-hero-poem/
have a nice day!
I ended up with a prose poem piece from this theme somehow- i suppose because i can’t think of who my heroes may be or have been.
The Death of Our Heroes
The day after, we buried our superheroes, didn’t we? It started without any mention of what we we were doing, in the shade the old shed, the gap in the hedge. We met there and your eyes were pink, puffy as hardly open buds. Under your arm you had the Superman figure you’d begged for and finally got. His arm was snapped off, the plastic stretched as if someone had tugged it from you. I remembered the day you got it and held it above your head, the cap gliding along behind the plastic Superman in his bright blue uniform, the red catching like a flame in the air. You were careful not to get it dirty, too careful. We imagined at night you cleaned his black hair with Vaseline and teased you about lying it in your sister’s doll’s cot.
I trailed behind you with a plastic spade in your hand. You started to dig. We didn’t say much about the streaks of tears on your grubby face, you looked like you’d punch anyone who did. Without being told we just knew it, we knew what you were going to do. I went inside and brought something of my own. My younger brother did too. What I had was a bracelet, a Wonderwoman tiara, gold plastic. I’d worn them and the shorts and twirled endlessly spinning away from my own shadow a day that seemed along time ago. But I wasn’t Wonderwoman was I? The kids pointed out was still fat and the only way I’d fly was with my ears that stuck out and went bright pink in the sun like a bat’s. My brother brought a stretch Armstrong strong man, whose arms no longer stretched, but hung like a gorilla’s at his side. He also brought one of my mother’s old dresses, a pair of shoes. She had once put them on carefully once, looked in the mirror but now they were covered in dust. He wouldn’t tell you, but he’d dressed up in them when he was very small. He’d tottered in my mother’s shoes and white dress and an old sun sat, smiling, feeling like he had the super powers of grown ups to make themselves pretty much into anyone they wanted. It was funny, how he tottered about and imitated our mother. He looked a foot taller. Our father didn’t see it that way at all. His eyes bulged, his lips went white. My brother knew to take the outfit off right away. I never knew if it was because he was a boy pretending to be a girl, or pretending to be our mother. Anyway, he brought those shoes, that dress too. As soon as I saw them I picked up one of our father’s screwdrivers and brought it along with my wonder woman bracelets and the broken strong man.
You were still digging, the whole got wider. But now you weren’t alone. A girl from a few doors away was stood next to you with a nurse’s uniform that was too small for her now and a photo of her mother. Pretty soon there were more of us, kids from all over with Batmobiles, Robin costumes, masks that never hid what they wanted, super heroes who frayed or broke in half. We said no eulogy, we just stood there and one by one placed our capes, our Supermen, our costumes and my dad’s screwdriver I knew couldn’t fix everything in hole in the ground.
Small poem, not on prompt:
http://poemblaze.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/nature/
it was bound to happen: a volcano poem!
http://caroleesherwood.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/napowrimo-20/
My poem today is pretty shallow. I almost fell asleep but woke up in the nick of time. A poem came fairly quickly. I am grateful for anything that came.
caped crusader
http://redshoepoet.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20.html
Thank you Jessica. Still barely on prompt, this is not so much honoring a hero but offering some gratitude that we still have a few:
Curse of Heroes
http://jdmackenzie.blogspot.com/2010/04/curse-of-heroes.html
2/3rds done….!!!
My NaPoWriMo poems, challenges prompts are on Facebook or right here:
http://dash30dash.ning.com/profiles/blogs/napowrimo-day-20-poems
Keep writing!!!!
Possibly some unconsidered politics in mine today. http://rhiannonproblematising.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/napowrimo-20-wishing-i-were-a-lefty/
My idol is the Bard, but my treatment of him is a bit odd:
An Illiterate Criticism of Identity Politics
(but my poem from day 18 is about superheroes)
http://caroleesherwood.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/napowrimo-18/
http://katharinewhitcomb.blogspot.com/2010/04/prompt-for-today-write-poem-in-which.html
it started out as a hero poem and then morphed into something else!
The secret to my success.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978185227
My hero poems always come out really bitter.
http://healingforthehealthy.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20-hero-poem.html
here is mine: http://teapartiesonneptune.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/compassion/
Done. But wow, do I have poem burnout. Anyone else?
http://yearofthebooks.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/poem-a-day-day-20/
here is #20…I had a few childhood dreams…but Jackie was my first
http://www.waynepitchko.blogspot.com
that shoud have read chidhood HERO
http://www.waynepitchko.blogspot.com
Hero of Mothers
http://richelledodaro.blogspot.com
I don’t have to look far for my hero.Here is a simple cinquain for my hero http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2010/04/20/to-my-dearest/
I wrote about a different kind of Super Hero. Thought you all may enjoy this humorous take.
http://babblingoninbabylon.com/blog
Hero of the Neighborhood
When I was a child of four who spent
Her days imaging games with the
Neighborhood kids and a special friend
Anna Marie, the girl next door
Our yards separated by a prickly hedge
You had to walk around to the side-
Walk out in front. An old neighborhood
Even then, in the days of the great
Depression when every one was poor.
The morning I remember, Anna Marie and
I were playing in our yard. My mother was
On the porch washing clothes – she used the
Old community washing machine that had
A tub and wringer and not much else…Suddenly
We heard the screams, perhaps we screamed
Ourselves, running to the porch where my
Mother’s arm had been seized by the wringer
And would not let go
All the neighbors ran outside
Including Officer Feeney who had stopped
To have a cup of tea with his sister, the
Mother of Anna Marie. When he heard the
Commotion outside he didn’t take the time
To run around the side walk – no, what he
Did was leap the hedge – sailed over in a
Single bound, unplugged the machine and
Set my mother free! What a hero! I
Remember how the neighbors cheered
While I clung to my mother, crying,
Later, I stood next to the hedge. It was
As tall as me. I don’t remember the
Cameras, the newspaper interview.
But when I read of Superman who
Could leap
Tall buildings in a single bound I
Remember Officer Feeney
who did it first.
In a hurry today, but I at least wrote down a starting thought….
http://www.shicho.net/words/?p=1122
More of a wish for a hero
The Feast Which Lasts
http://nothinghypothetical.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/the-feast-which-lasts/
Turned out a grumpy grumbling old man was part of D-Day at Normandy.
http://novaheart.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/poem-42010-boot-steps/
little match girl lost: http://web.me.com/susansonnen/Susan_Sonnens_musings/Blog/Entries/2010/4/20_NaPoWriMo%2C_Day_20.html
This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to write…but I am glad I did.
http://kagerrr.tumblr.com/post/536279980/april20thpoem
Turning myself out for display leaves little for me to find within. http://jasonriedy.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/an-anemic-napowrimo-20/
sigh. Must get back on this horse.
There are no words
http://poiesis3.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-day-20.html
I wrote this pretty quickly, and that always makes me nervous…but here it is:
http://rrosenchang.blogspot.com
Long, tiring day today – finally got this poem in and now I’m going to bed. In Europe we’re blaming the volcano on everything – fatigue, the gloomy weather, the drop in the dollar – but that’s a poem for another day. Here’s my hero poem:
http://synecdochicstuff.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20.html
My hero poem:
http://herwordsbloomed.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20-hero-poem.html
Today may be the one day where I don’t follow the prompt!
http://poetry.disorderedcosmos.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20-acute-puncture/
In praise of weeds
(some humans are like this too)
http://mmw113.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20-in-praise-of-weeds.html
For my hero
http://sheiladeethdrabbles.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-napowrimo-20.html
It’s my Moms birthday so this was a no brainer subject wise. The form took a while to show up, though.
http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/jjspoetry/2010/04/what-she-saw-napowrimo-day-20-a-hero-heroine-poem.html
I’m late, but here I am:
http://ravenswingpoetry.com/2010/04/20/napowrimo-poem-18-dust/
I was kind of stymied about which way to take this prompt until I read rallentanda’s wonderful paean to Sir Percy Blakeney, aka The Scarlet Pimpernel. I ended up writing not one, but three takes on this prompt– “Give Me a Hero-I, II and III”:
http://caraholman.wordpress.com/2010/04/20/2010-napowrimo-20/
Now why does the song from Shrek: “Holding Out for a Hero” keep running through my head…
Didn’t have time to think about this prompt, so I did my own thing, sort of. Part of the idea also came from the Poetic Asides website. Been busy all day, so I only had a few minutes to glance at both. Mine is called Archaic.
http://systematicweasel.blogspot.com/2010/04/archaic-4-20-2010-poem-day-challenge.html
My heros were those people who taught me to be a teacher—http://word-painting.blogspot.com/2010/04/learning-to-be-teacher.html
My url wasn’t highlighted so I’ll tray again.http://word-painting.blogspot.com/2010/04/learning-to-be-teacher.html
Not quite a hero poem, but something that inspires me to continue writing on days when I just don’t feel like I am going anywhere…
http://amylevy.com/wp/2010/04/napowrimo-20-to-a-tragic-victorian-novelist/
This was tough. I ended up coming back to the prompt by accident.
I’m my hero
I definitely deserve it
having pulled myself
in and out of my own
made life sometimes
just barely and some days
it doesn’t seem like at all
but there are other days
that purely shine
A litte ditty for this one: I wanna be your hero
Just a short one…
http://just-somestuff.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20-im-fuckin-hero.html
I prefer figurative definitions of heroes. Here’s to seeing what can happen!
http://avniously.blogspot.com/2010/04/swamp-weeds.html
Demon Slayer: http://thekitchenbitchponders.blogspot.com/2010/04/national-poetry-writing-month-day_20.html
This was a bit difficult. But then I had a light bulb moment (thanks Rall);) I am also not much into idolizing people. There are some that I admire though …
http://flaubert-poetrywithme.blogspot.com/2010/04/berets-and-fatigues-napowrimo-20.html