i don’t doubt that i’ll successfully finish my goodreads challenge this year. damned if i don’t, i will consume 104 books in the 2020 calendar year. i have faith in (if nothing else) my procrastination abilities and can confidently say (while 10 behind) the books Will Be Read.

still, i bit off more than i could chew.

or rather: i stuck an appropriate-sized piece onto my fork, tasted a bit, tasted a bit more, and now have to shove the rest of it down my throat so the waiter can clear my plate. …

since october 1st, i’ve been participating in a daily poetry activity called the poeming, an annual event where poets work with one title from a selected author to write found poems. this year, the referenced author is christopher pike and my assigned book is “the return.” posted here are the poems from the last week and a half of the challenge. you can also read them in their original posting order and with the right spacing without excess periods at katwiseman.tumblr.com.

10.22.19

the truth

“it’s not that i have faith,” she thought
“i just know that your time of death
is no more…

since the beginning of october, i’ve been participating in a daily poetry activity called the poeming, an annual event where poets work with one title from a selected author to write found poems. this year, the referenced author is christopher pike and my assigned book is “the return.” posted here are my week 3 poems. i’ll continue posting weekly round-ups here, but you can read them as they’re posted by following katwiseman.tumblr.com.

10.15.19

back on earth in a grave somewhere

after all you have experienced,
would any part of you
rot?

(350)

10.16.19

too ecstatic to be dogmatic

there is an ocean…

since the beginning of october, i’ve been participating in a daily poetry activity called the poeming, an annual event where poets work with one title from a selected author to write found poems. this year, the referenced author is christopher pike and my assigned book is “the return.” posted here are my week 2 poems. i’ll continue posting weekly round-ups here, but you can read them as they’re posted (and with the right spacing without excess periods) by following katwiseman.tumblr.com.

10.8.19

remember the dream

wonderful, yet simple
painful to wake from.

f
. l
. . o
. . . a
. . . …

since october 1, i’ve been participating in a daily found poetry activity called the poeming. it’s an annual event where each year, poets work with one title from a selected author to write found poems and post those poems every day throughout october on tumblr. this year for the poeming iv: the peril of pike, the referenced author is christopher pike and my assigned book is “the return.” i’ll continue posting weekly round-ups here for the rest of the month, but you can read them as they’re posted by following katwiseman.tumblr.com.

10.1.19

for the wanderers of the world, may they one…

oh the futility of taming what once was wild.

how to combat centuries of evolution?
how to undo a year of living outdoors?
how to tell this domesticated beast
not to bring lizards inside?

clearly,
the answer to these questions is not:

to scream atop the bed,
horror-struck, watching
brown limbs flail and orange paws jab.

nor is it to chase predator and prey
back from whence they came.
(because they won’t go)

instead,
wait for the little lioness
to step back and look.
observing her toy,
plotting.

and quick as she pleased to disrupt the morning,
with paper towel over…

i used to look forward to the silky sky blue that
came each september

it’s lighter than a summer blue and
deeper than icy blue winter

but ever since the world caught fire, its
cooling, calming color is veiled
by a filmy yellow haze.
it hovers over another month as hot as the last.

[+stanza?]
oh who cares.
it’s too hot

.

and

one fine autumn morning —
cockroaches stopped dead
too hot to carry on,
carcasses left to bake in the sun
that rises over a dewless lawn

I remember pacing back and forth in the kitchen common area of my sophomore year dorm. On the second floor in my second year with my second roommate sleeping less than 20 feet away, I convinced my dad to foot the bill for a class that would take me to Paris over spring break.

A month and a half before I was set to depart, I remember being dumped by my first boyfriend in the middle of the cafeteria in the middle of lunch on a Sunday. I remember exhaustion after spending the night in the hospital, after driving my…