Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fool for Poetry

April is national Poetry Month in the USA and in Canada, and poets from everywhere are participating: Are you joining the yearly challenge to write a poem a day in April?   It is not too late to begin.  In the comments below, please let us know where you post and where you find prompts. 

2014 Poster Design: by Chip Kidd, offered by Poets.org from the Academy of American Poets.

The 2014 poster features the lines "Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, / Missing me one place search another, / I stop somewhere waiting for you."
from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself."

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Midweek Motif ~ Fool for Poetry

It's hard to find positive meanings for the word "fool."  One that can be positive or negative is "To be a fool for something" meaning  to succumb to it, something we are often too logical to do.  That is the motif of Marge Piercy's poem "Toad Dreams" below.  The Tarot card "The Fool" is a positive image that stands for innocence and readiness to experience everything, even if difficult. And then there is the paid job of being a fool--as in a Shakespearean jester or a stand-up comedian or a late-night talk show host.  

Today's challenge:  Write a poem about being a fool or a fool for something, positive or negative.  

At this time of year, I get Spring Fever.  I am a fool for love, nature, and art galleries.  Colors and smells grab me and I dream a lot, willingly, especially of happy endings. And I am a fool for poetry.

“I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness 

can be worked out some way. I am a fool.” 
― Kurt Vonnegut

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Toad dreams

BY MARGE PIERCY

That afternoon the dream of the toads rang through the elms by Little River and affected the thoughts of men, though they were not conscious that they heard it.--Henry Thoreau

The dream of toads: we rarely

credit what we consider lesser

life with emotions big as ours,

but we are easily distracted,

abstracted. People sit nibbling ...

Please read the rest of this amazing poem at The Poetry Foundation.

Marge Piercy, "Toad dreams" from Stone, Paper, Knife (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983).  

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Viola:  This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
 And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
 He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
 The quality of persons, and the time,
 And, like the haggard, cheque at every feather
 That comes before his eye. 

William Shakespeare, from Twelfth Night

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Please:  

1.      Post your "Fool" poem on your site, and then link it here.

2.      Share only original and new work written for this challenge. 

3.      Leave a comment here.

4.      Honor our community by visiting and commenting on others' poems.

(Next week's Midweek Motif will be Distractions or Stops Along the Way.)

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