by the Read Write Poem Staff
Today’s prompt is from Read Write Poem member Kristen McHenry:
“In ancient times, Persian rug makers were deeply religious and believed that only God could make something perfect. They would deliberately drop in a small faulty stitch, a flaw, into each Persian rug. In doing so, a ‘Persian Flaw’ revealed the rug maker’s devotion to God.” — Karel Weijand
Like many of us, I often struggle with the gremlin of perfectionism. The above quote reminds me that achieving perfection is not my prime directive in life, and that in fact, striving for perfection can be a form of hubris.
Write a poem about flaws and perfection in yourself or in nature or write about how you feel about being imperfect or perfect.
Here are some things you may want to reflect on as you write: Do flaws add beauty to the world? What does it feel like to experience perfection? What is it like to encounter flaws — in our selves, in others, in systems or in objects? As imperfect beings, are we able to adequately judge perfection?
If you’d like, you can try contrasting these both concepts in one poem or just choose the one that you feel most drawn to. There is potential for both perfection and flaws in everything on earth, so there’s no limit to to subject you use to frame your poems.
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.
While waiting for this prompt, I created an homage to one of our most memorable poets for April 2010. Please accept this with my admiration and respect, my Ode to Surazeus:
It happens when the night draws nigh
we heare the flying saucer
and then arrives the astral Bard
who wrytes like Geoffrey Chaucer
We heare his tales of chivalry
of weapons, babes and food
It’s clear that we have in our midst
one strangely gifted dude
He guides us though another tyme
his style so formed and gallant
we cannot criticize a cat
with so much skill and talent
(Because he writes such lengthy poems
I’ve learned it’s up to me
to get myself first to the loo
and have that evening pee)
So here’s to you, fair Surazeus
you’ve brightened April nights
we’re certain that we’ll think of you
when we see men in tights
~ J. D. Mackenzie
Johannes Beilharz replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Wonderful fun! Three big cheers to you.
Here’s my # 20
http://brokeness.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-20-april-is-hard.html
This is going to take some thought. Imperfect or perfect?
Pamela
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference: FLAWED
Hm….perfectly flawed.
There was a month
Where we were made to shed
Like onions all our inner skins
Before we went to bed.
Each stickier to loosen
The tears began to flow
Exposed our souls a little more
What else was there to know?
Me fears that when the journey’s done
With all our selves exposed
Peel upon peel is lying there
Like old discarded clothes.
This prompt will require a bit of introspection. This is fun but I am beginning to wonder if the exercise is one in Poetry or is it a journey of self-disovery? lol.
Mark Lysgaard replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 1:18 am
Love the metaphor and your rhyme and meter. Nicely done!
~Mark
Marie replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Enjoyed it. Good work!
21 days down, 9 to go. Oy… this is getting harder.
unfiltered
Woo-hoo. I had fun with this prompt. A former writing instructor once told me, “no flaws, no character.” I’m sure this poem has lots of flaws but it’s late on the west coast:
Tell Me a Story
http://jdmackenzie.blogspot.com/2010/04/tell-me-story.html
Unless something better comes to me in the next 23 hours…ideals
poemsotherwise.blogspot.com/2010/04/wobble-around.html
This poem was inspired by the Kink’s song “Misfits,” so I named my own poem “Misfits.”
http://babblingoninbabylon.com/blog
haikujunky replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 2:32 pm
love it lol
Good prompt Kristen
Being a classical musician this prompt rang bells for me
‘Perfection’
http://rallentanda.blogspot.com
NaPoWriMo #21 I wanna live in a treehouse…
rob kistner replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 2:12 am
I still wanna live in a treehouse just not so late at night — try going here…
NaPoWriMo #21
My poem is now available for select viewing http://thelaughinghousewife.wordpress.com
Marie replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 9:16 am
I love your facts about goldfish…couldn’t find a way to comment on your website…great poems there!
In Business
I had a lot of fun with this. Like self confidence? Read
(Im)perfection!
This one’s a thought-provoking piece based on the often contradictory messages children hear, directly and indirectly.
“Don’t be silent. Don’t be loud.
Don’t be doubtful. Don’t be proud.
Don’t be white or black or brown.
Don’t do that. You’re not allowed…”
Read the full poem ‘Don’t be’ at http://www.gregoconnell.com
Bear with me at Scrambled, Not Fried
For better or worse?
http://melrosemusings.blogspot.com/2010/04/quest-napowrimo-day-21.html
I’m sure I’ll have a typo in this somewhere just to prove my point…
Ode to Imperfection
Perfect? Who’s perfect?
I’m far from perfect.
Eighty percent is good for me.
Second place is good for me.
The top is hard to defend.
Does “Cost-Performance-Index”
Ring a bell?
I know perfect people.
Cats is great, but Cats frets
over every story and poem
until it’s filed to perfection.
And even then she frets.
There’s history of perfect people.
Harrison and his longitude
Took forty years to perfection,
Then got cheated for his pay.
If only he had had the guts
To imperfection
Thirty years earlier.
Imperfection is perfect.
Flaws are good and natural.
Nothing is perfect anyway.
Have faith. Have the guts
To be imperfect.
Just a little.
I’m ready for this to be over now. Perfection
stumped at first by imperfect prompt- but its an apt theme. i think poem a day means having to shed the quest to be perfect and accepting i can’t get it perfect in the time before tommorrows post is up
The Circus Leaves Town
If you held a mirror across the strong man’s face
it would not be simple as symmetry.
The cupid’s bow in the centre was crooked.
When he fired out a word it missed its target.
One corner of his mouth was upturned
as if smiling at a joke the other side
of his face hadn’t been told.
My lip was a slight cleft, a smooth scar off centre,
soft as a petal right inside a flower, a small part
of me inside out right before him.
We were not perfect. There was no hiding it,
no disguising. But when the big top came down
it came slowly. In the shadow of it’s folding
we watched, our hands meeting.
The sideshow of the acrobat and the clown girl stood
Together just seeing the red and white tent
stripe the sky. My feet felt small and uncertain,
the strong man fidgeted with nothing in his hands.
The grease paint wiped off my face,
and my plastic nose in the trailer.
All I could smell was the cage of tigers,
in the dusk their eyes lit small fires.
Before the circus moved on something happened,
A weight so light he couldn’t hold it alone
two imperfect sets lips somehow met
and still created a kiss.
Stiletto replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 6:13 am
I love the idea/image of the circus leaving. Very nice!
(My schedule didn’t leave time for me to be here for a few days…. It’s nice to be back!)
Flaws
The skin on her arms
When twisted just right
Forms foreign gullies
An old lady’s arms
The wrinkles around her eyes
Deepen in the summer sun
Her jowls grow heavier
She avoids mirrors now
The beauty of the young
Women in magazines, at cafés
They think they have flaws
Just wait, she thinks, you too
Her body has slowed
But she can still loop and curl
Stretch and arch
And reach for her dreams
Marie replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 9:33 am
Lovely.
lorikmacdonald replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 12:32 pm
I loved this! Well done!
The muse was slow to visit today, but here is my day 21 poem – using the heroes prompt – with an hour to spare:
http://poetrychook.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-21-heroes.html
I’m feeling very imperfect by this stage of the challenge, oet’s hope the muse will oblige again tomorrow.
Werner Heisenberg makes an appearance in “Gingerbread Man” — read or listen here:
http://jasoncrane.org/2010/04/21/poem-gingerbread-man/
Enjoy!
Jason
Hi everybody!
For today, an Imagism poem (sort of autobiography).
http://stiletto.crisopeya.eu/2010/04/21/napowrimo-21-perfectly-flawed/
http://mothersparrow.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/she-found-what-she-was-looking-for-rest-her-soul/
three tales about three tails
http://crankymango.blogspot.com/2010/04/three-tales.html
vivienne Blake replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 1:21 pm
These are lovely. I particularly like “perhaps we were still looking for her when we chose the others.” I can’t make up my mind if they are dogs or horses.
what Rindy Sam did in an art gallery on July 19, 2007
http://novaheart.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/poem-42110-kiss-it-cy-twombly-has-left-this-white-for-me/
Our visitors have just left, and there’s all the clearing up to do, so here is a sonnet I wrote earlier, which deals with one of my own many imperfections. If I can I’ll write another one later.
Tinnitus
Hands that once caressed the keys,
made music to delight the ear,
rippled, romanced with careless ease,
raised air and melody with joy.
How sad that time deforms my skill.
Rebellious fingers snub command,
un-hinged by grey cells’ slow decay,
slipping right hand, left at odds.
Wrong notes crash, discordant chords,
unwonted pause assaults the ear.
Where’s the music of younger days?
Numb machines can’t still this need.
Although the music is not dead,
it lives, an i-Pod, in my head.
derrick replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 7:53 am
Sad and frustrating, I imagine, Vivienne, but beautifully written.
vivienne Blake replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 8:00 am
Thankyou Derrick – the difference between a poem worked on over weeks and a Napo ten minute job?
Robin replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 9:16 am
Vivienne–Touching poem. I’m sure the frustration must be great when something as fundamental and basic as the hands betray you, especially in something as lovely as music.
Marie replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 9:38 am
Moving and poignant. The last line is great.
This one happens to be a perfect fit for perfectly flawed.
Only a little one:
Rant
Age has now withered me
my eyes grow dim
support tights hold me up
and my life is grim
Cranky ticker’s out of synch
hearing’s on the blink
memory is fallible
so I forget the rest
Robin replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 9:18 am
This, too, is strong. Powerful final line–it says so much!
Great prompt!! Perfect smile
I’ve been reading Diane Ackerman’s Dawn Light. This is what I came up with for today’s prompt. “Cosmic Connection”:
http://caraholman.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/2010-napowrimo-21/
My poems for today are available on Facebook and here: http://dash30dash.ning.com/profiles/blogs/napowrimo-day-21-poems-writing
Write on . . . .
Here is my take on the prompt. More of a Perfection expiring idea.
Expired
http://systematicweasel.blogspot.com/2010/04/expired-4-21-2010-poem-day-challenge.html
And here is mine for today’s prompt.
http://synecdochicstuff.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-21.html
http://www.robertlunday.net/2010/04/poem-21-poetica-ars.html
Perfect Storm
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978187728
Not Perfect Enough to be a Perfectionist
You see, my room is clean but I did not dust the corners,
and my clothes are ironed except for my underwear.
I don’t always have time to water the plants,
pull the weeds, manicure my nails, curl my hair.
I could bake a soufflé for dessert and broil a lamb,
cook a steak rare, the mauve tones of a sunset.
I would never have rejection in the mail, bills
always on time, never forget a name or face,
and everyone, even his mother, would like me.
I would never drink too much, be too loose
at the mouth and say the wrong words,
with the wrong accent. I would like your kind
of music, know the words to the song, float a tune.
I could stitch a button and translate at sonnet
embroider some new language in your ear.
Watch me run the faster mile, glide the smoother waltz
sleep in the most anatomically correct position
and remember my dream. You see, I know even now,
there is something I failed to mention like,
I would never feel life blowing by or the need
for a seat belt while I am sitting at this desk.
I even found a kind of form for today’s poem. http://rhiannonproblematising.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/napowrimo-21-accepting-imperfections/
Taking Root. Thanks for the prompt! Have had this photo for ages but never found the poem in it…
http://mmw113.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-21-taking-root.html
Here’s my answer to the prompt:
http://poemblaze.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/perfect-error/
I also played with parallelismus membrorum. I think this form works well for today’s prompt.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978187810
My imperfection can be found in the nonsense formulation of a password:
Pass on, my imperfect
Love this prompt.
what I have tried to say to you
I’m with Irene – I had a lot of fun watching as this one developed.
http://juliejordanscott.typepad.com/jjspoetry/2010/04/3ww-napowrimo-ced2010-flaws-.html
My submission: “Work”
http://yourinnerceo.blogspot.com
Wanting to Want to
http://nothinghypothetical.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/wanting-to-want-to/
Ugh, now there was a painful one.
Ah, yes — perfection and I go a long way back! I could probably write a whole chapbook on it… and may, someday, in a perfect world!
But meanwhile:
Perfectly Organized
If my perfect filing system
were ever to get buried in ash,
the hot pumice fossilizing shelves
of books by topic – except
for those I am using, or have used,
or will use, that lie or pile in monumental
stacks – perhaps they’ll be mistook
for stanchions. But my perfect
folders, legions of upright cardboard wings
labelled, often re-labelled, palimsest,
(ignore their colors, denoting
mood or whim, not topic)
still awaiting alpha sort – but chrono
works: the folders at the back archived
by disuse. And yes, some recline
on table top or couch or near to hand;
the filing’s sedimentary, as nature does.
Perfectly adequate to the day,
but not, perhaps, so obviously perfect
to future archeologists who ponder
ash-shaped mysteries: a couch, yes,
and square pillows – but this serrated stack –
two books? Then papers? Then… a plate?
with pens like needles in a fossil haystack.
But I am perfectly content, knowing
I will not be there to explain.
all my poems are gathered at http://www.cathymcguire.com/poetry.htm
Oh – and with perfect predictability – I forgot to set the italics on line 21 to 24…:-}
Taking time out from cleaning, this is what came to mind
http://sheiladeethdrabbles.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-napowrimo-21.html
Thanks for the prompt Kristen.
http://flaubert-poetrywithme.blogspot.com/2010/04/for-love-of-napowrimo-21.html
Tattoos and scars as imperfect. Hair as kind of perfect.
http://avniously.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-2005.html
Kelly replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 8:40 pm
I love this.
Look at the half full, never at the half empty. Here is my poem ‘All Is Well’ – http://umaathreya.blogsome.com/2010/04/21/all-is-well/
Villanelle. I have no idea why. Has nothing to do with the prompt. Well, on second thought, it probably does.
http://chapter38.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/3-2-villanelle-as-sandwich/
Shanna Germain replied:
April 21st, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Wrong link. Because I’m braindead this morning.
http://yearofthebooks.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/poem-a-day-day-21/
I loved this prompt, and at the beginning, I had grand intentions for a deep and moving poem about being used in our brokenness. But this is what came out: “If You Look Closely”
http://poiesis3.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-21-if-you-look-closely.html
Whilst thinking about this, into my mind popped the first lines of a poem I wrote many years ago. So… decided to rewrite that poem into a new one
. Here is The Potter.
http://ingeborgsblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-april-21st-perfectly-flawed.html
mine is flawed:
http://firmlyrooted.blogspot.com/2010/04/non-negotiable.html
How do they do that?
from spring’s umber muck
emerge pristine daffodils
trimmed in yellow frills
all these images were part of a bus ride in San Francisco yesterday:
http://lanijo.com/poetry/nonsense
Here’s my offering for today:
Unravel
Don’t Blame the Diamond
Here’s mine!
one on each,
“Perfection” and “Imperfection”
at http://1965footprints.blogspot.com
Perfect Surrender
Got flaws?
Flaws for sale!
http://daily-yawp.blogspot.com/
http://skankinmoon.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/in-the-perfect-direction/
A little ode to the harsh realities of the mathematics of physics: http://poetry.disorderedcosmos.com/2010/04/napowrimo-21-respect-the-taylor-series/
Sorry I couldn’t read more of today’s poems – ran out of time as daughter sent me a huge proofreading job for tomorrow morning. I hope to come back to them.
We’re hosting a conference this week, hence the promptless and short responses: http://jasonriedy.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/napowrimo-21/
How do you get rid of imperfection?
http://tinacelio.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/skunk-abatement/
Cinquain (almost)
no time
in our lives to
achieve perfection the
only flawless thing is the
universe
I used to love my freckles…
http://shannons-words.livejournal.com/158291.html
Imperfection: http://richelledodaro.blogspot.com
Seems I am always rushing, always behind schedule, always imperfect.
http://herwordsbloomed.blogspot.com/2010/04/napowrimo-21-perfectly-flawed.html