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November by Ludovico Mattioli |
Here it is November again. Halloween is past and the end of the year is just around the corner. But November has a character of its own—a character that depends, of course, on what part of the globe you live on. In the U.S.A. on November 1, the baseball season is ending, with the World Series overlapping the early stages of the football season. Many families are thinking about Thanksgiving, often celebrated with the traditional roast turkey and with pumpkin pie.
I have read that when General Dwight D. Eisenhower was commanding the allied forces in Europe during World War II, some Europeans were surprised when he asked for pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner. Evidently, pumpkin was considered a peasant food, not fit for a big celebration. But maybe they hadn’t eaten pumpkin pie, pumpkin coffeecake, pumpkin bars, pumpkin cheesecake, etc., etc. I wonder if those same people would consider chili a peasant food? I think of it as a “comfort food,” one especially good for the cooler weather we experience in November.
I found two poems about November—not about Thanksgiving or football. Both were written by poets from Wisconsin. Enjoy their take on November, and they decided how you would write about this month.
I Like November
I like the
grey and woody way
November
leaves a filigree of trees
stripped
and spare
untidy
tatters at their feet
Let it go
I like the
grey and weary way
November
hunkers down
to stubble
in exhausted fields
Give it a rest
Spring is
so insistent
Summer so
full of itself
Fall tries
to feed everyone
but not
November
November
says
Give it a rest
Make soup
with what’s
left
from the
harvest
Find a good
book and light a fire
It’s almost dark
~ Elizabeth Harmatys Park
from Theater of Seasons. Used by permission.
November Bargain
If I
could, I would bargain for a day
like
this November day at any time,
when
I can grasp the sun with fingertips,
feel
it throbbing through my marrow.
If I
could but catch again the last
warm
breeze, jostle it from
where
I stand to the dog whose nose
advises
him that reprieve is brief,
and
he would forward it to jack o'lanterns
hanging
on to autumn, their fixed smiles
of
astonishment appropriate to this day.
For
another day like this I would suffer
the
scratch of branches as they etch
their
signatures upon my seasoned soul
marking
me as offering.
~ June Nirschl
from Slightly Off Q. Used by Permission
Some On-line Resources for November Poems:
The “Interesting Literature” website has a list of what it considers the best poems for November. To read an entire poem, click on its title. https://interestingliterature.com/2019/10/the-best-poems-for-november/.
Discover Poetry has 21 November poems to recommend at https://discoverpoetry.com/poems/november-poems/.
The November Challenge:
The challenge for this month is a poem on the theme of November. Your poem may be literal or metaphoric, serious or humorous. It can be for children or for adults. It can be about the month as a whole, or about some specific November holiday, activity, or experience. Be creative! Note that the blog format does not accommodate shaped poems or long lines; if a poem has long lines, they are used, they have to be broken in two, with the second part indented (as in the poem “Lilith,” one of the May 2018 winners), or the post has to use small print. Note, too, that long poems are at a disadvantage.
Poems could be disqualified if the guidelines are not followed. Submit your poem by November 15.
1-Title your poem unless it is in a form that discourages titles.
2-Single-space.
3-Whether you put your poem in the body of your email or in an attachment, please put your submission in this order:
Your poem
Your name
Publication data if your poem was previously published
A brief third-person bio
Your email address – it saves me a lot of work if you put your email address at the end of your submission.
4-Please keep the poem on the left margin (standard 1” margin). Do not put any part of your submission on a colored background. No colored type. Do not use a fancy font and do not use a header or footer.
5-You may submit a published poem if you retain copyright, but please include publication data. This applies to poems published in books, journals, newspapers, or on the Internet. Poems already used on this blog are not eligible to win, but the poets may submit a different poem.
6-The deadline is midnight, Central Time Zone, November 15. Poems submitted after the deadline will not be considered. There is no charge to enter, so there are no monetary rewards. Winners are published on this blog.
7-Please don’t stray too from “family-friendly” language (some children and teens read this blog).
8- No simultaneous submissions, please. You should know by the end of the month whether or not your poem will be published.
9-The poet retains copyright on each poem. If a previously unpublished poem wins and is published elsewhere later, please give credit to this blog. I do not register copyright with the US copyright office, but by US law, the copyright belongs to the writer unless the writer assigns it to someone else.
10-Decision of the judge or judges is final.
11-If the same poet wins three months in a row (which has not happened thus far), he or she will be asked not to submit the following two months.
12-Send one poem only.
How to Submit Your Poem:
1-Send your poem to wildamorris4[at]gmail[dot]com (substitute the @ sign for “at” and a . for “dot”). The poem must respond in some way to the specific challenge for the month.
2-Put “November Poetry Challenge Submission” FOLLOWED BY YOUR NAME in the subject line of your email.
3-Submission of a poem gives permission for the poem to be posted on the blog if it is a winner, so be sure that you put your name exactly as you would like it to appear if you do win at the end of the poem.
4-Poems may be pasted into an email or sent as an attachment or both (Doc, Docx, rich text or plain text; no PDF files, please). Please do not indent the poem or center it on the page. It helps if you submit the poem in the format used on the blog (Title and poem left-justified; title in bold (not all capital letters); your name at the bottom of the poem). Put everything in the order listed above.
6-Also, please do not use multiple spaces instead of punctuation in the middle of lines. I have no problem with poets using that technique (I sometimes do it myself). However, I have difficulty getting the blog to accept and maintain extra spaces.
Poems shorter than 40 lines are preferred.
Bios
June Nirschl has been a resident of Door County since 2000. She has been fortunate in finding a flourishing community of poets. Her career included teaching high school English and serving as a municipal clerk.
Elizabeth Harmatys Park is a past recipient of the Jade Ring First Poetry Prize awarded by the Wisconsin Writers Association. Her poetry has been published in journals, anthologies, and the Wisconsin Poetry Calendar. Park writes with Authors Echo in Burlington, WI.
Poets retain copyright for their own poems.
© Wilda Morris
