Day Twenty Eight-NaPoWriMo – Let it Roll On – A Poem Inspired by Chenda Melam

NaPoWriMo: today’s prompt (optional, as always). Music features heavily in human rituals and celebrations. We play music at parties; we play it in parades, and at weddings. In her poem, OBIT [Music], Victoria Chang describes the role that music played in her mother’s funeral. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that involves music at a ceremony or event of some kind.

Today’s poem is an experiment in rhythm, repetition, and musical energy. I drew inspiration from chenda melam, the vibrant percussion ensemble tradition of Kerala, where sound, tempo, and movement build in waves. This is my first time trying something like this, and I found the process both exciting and meditative. Here's the poem:

Artist-Devassia-Devagiri

Day Twenty Eight-NaPoWriMo – Let it Roll On
A Poem Inspired by Chenda Melam


Let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on

drums and sticks and drums and sticks on
drums and sticks and drums and sticks on

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Note on Chenda Melam:

Chenda Melam is a traditional percussion ensemble performed during temple festivals in Kerala, India. The central instrument, the chenda, is a cylindrical drum played with sticks, known for its deep, resonant sound. A full melam can involve dozens—or even hundreds—of performers, creating intricate rhythmic layers that build slowly in speed and intensity. The result is a powerful, immersive musical experience that resonates not just in the ears but throughout the body. This poem attempts to capture a fragment of that energy in words.

Let me know what you think—or if you’ve ever tried writing with rhythm as your guide. This year's NaPoWriMo is concluding in three days! 

Thanks for reading!

Day Twenty Seven-NaPoWriMo-Inheritance

NaPoWriMo: today’s optional prompt. W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a  painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.

image: Smarthistory.org
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1611–12-- 1620–21

Day Twenty Seven-NaPoWriMo-Inheritance
After Artemisia

They knew how to bleed without dying
Hold it! Let me behead Holofernes
Judith sliced through his bones and mass
Poised and gracious
She held him by the hair,
as one holds memory—tight, bitter, unrelenting

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Day Twenty Six-NaPoWriMo: here’s your prompt! Try your hand at a sonnet – or at least something “sonnet-shaped.” Think about the concept of the sonnet as a song, and let the format of a song inform your attempt. Be as strict or not strict as you want.

Day Twenty Six-NaPoWriMo-Sonnet in the Language of Wounds

I traced your pulse through silence, vein by vein,

Where starlight sank in skin like whispered thread.
You wore your sorrow soft, like summer rain—
A body blooming poems where it bled.

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Day Twenty Five – NaPoWriMo – The Handpan

NaPoWriMo: Today we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that recounts an experience of your own in hearing live music, and tells how it moves you. It could be a Rolling Stones concert, your little sister’s middle school musical, or just someone whistling – it just needs to be something meaningful to you.

Day Twenty Five –  NaPoWriMo – The Handpan

Image: From Etsy- Credit to the due Artist

The Handpan

A tribute to Anas Al Halabi

Waves danced before my eyes—

—the ebb and flow,

the ebb and flow—

a tangled memory

rolled into stillness,

the hot air, a mirage,

the music tingled in my bones—

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Anas Al Halabi

Anas is a handpan artist in Dubai and I have heard that he is the founder of the first Handpan orchestra. You can see him play here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHxyh9pv-0x/ 

About Handpan

The handpan traces its origins back to the steelpan, which emerged in the 1930s in Trinidad and Tobago. Originally crafted from discarded oil barrels, steelpan (or steel pan) instruments provided a melodic range that captivated listeners and became an integral part of the Caribbean music scene.

From this rich musical heritage, the handpan would eventually emerge.

In the early 2000s, Swiss instrument makers named Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer introduced the Hang instrument, a pioneering handpan design, through the Swiss company PANart. Inspired by the steelpan, the Hang featured a unique layout of tone fields, producing enchanting and ethereal sounds.

Day Twenty Three- NaPoWriMo-Koel’s Call

NaPoWriMo: Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that focuses on birdsong. Need examples? Try A.E. Stallings’ “Blackbird Etude,” or for an old-school throwback, Shelley’s “To a Skylark.”

Day Twenty Three- NaPoWriMo-Koel’s Call

Art: Chinese School - Koel from Drawings of Birds from Malacca c1805- 18

Every morning, I close my eyes

to listen—
to listen to that birdsong

miles away from my homeland,
from that mango tree

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Coincidentally, two days back in the afternoon, I was speaking to my mother over the phone, and I could hear the Koel’s song in the backdrop—it drew me in. It always does. I live far from home, and the simple bird song brought me an entire world of feelings. It was as if the Koel became a bridge between my mother and me, between the present and the past, between where I was and where my heart longs to be. 

Day TwentyTwo-NaPoWriMo-The Things That Held Me

NaPoWriMo: write a poem about something you’ve done – whether it’s music lessons, or playing soccer, crocheting, or fishing, or learning how to change a tire – that gave you a similar kind of satisfaction, and perhaps still does.

Day TwentyTwo-NaPoWriMo-The Things That Held Me

From We're Islands Series - Deepa Gopal - Watercolour - Detail

I never “learned” to draw when I was young.
Never had paint on my hands,
Or glass-sleeved portfolios.
No towers of sketchbooks,
Just scattered A4 sheets—
Random, undocumented—

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

This poem needs reworking. But for now, here it is.

Day Twenty One-Napowrimo-Garden Log: Morning Report

NaPoWriMo: here’s our daily (optional) prompt. Sawako Nakayasu’s poem “Improvisational Score” is a rather surreal prose poem describing an imaginary musical piece that proceeds in a very unmusical way. Today, try your hand at writing your own poem in which something that normally unfolds in a set and well understood way  — like a baseball game or dance recital – goes haywire, but is described as if it is all very normal.

Day Twenty One-Napowrimo-Garden Log: Morning Report

Art: Thomas A. Gieseke - Spring

I stretch and stretch and pull weeds from around the blood-dripping hibiscus—still leaking despite last week’s pruning. The Ixora has developed short tentacles again. They’re within acceptable length but have begun waving and dancing mid-air, which may require intervention if it continues during pollination hours.

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

This took some time for me. I had to get the hang of it! 

Once I fell into the zone, it was fun! Hope you like it too, dear Reader.

Day Twenty-Napowrimo-Carpe Diem

NaPoWriMo:write a poem informed by musical phrasing or melody, that employs some form of soundplay (rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration). One way to approach this is to think of a song you know and then basically write new lyrics that fit the original song’s rhythm/phrasing.

I went along with something spontaneous and followed the impulse without pondering too much. I have been unwell for quite some time now, and so some days are still tiresome and taxing.

Here's my take on the Day Twenty prompt:

Day Twenty-Napowrimo-Carpe Diem

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, by John William Waterhouse-1909

1

Think of all things nice
Light, soft, and not a tinge of vice
Join in the summer slumber
I might order a juice or two

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Do leave me your thoughts.

Day Eighteen -Napowrimo-At This Hour, What Sound

NaPoWriMo: Take a look at Ellen Bass’s poem, “You’re the Top.” Now, craft your own poem that recounts an experience of driving/riding and singing, incorporating a song lyric.

Day Eighteen -Napowrimo-At This Hour, What Sound

Death and Life - Gustav Klimt - 1911

Winding through the wet hush of dusk,
your song spilled from the stereo—
Enna satham indha neram*—
and something inside me slit, quiet.

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

*Enna satham indha neram - What sound at this hour?

This poem is a response to the haunting Tamil song “Enna Satham Indha Neram” from the film Punnagai Mannan. It is the first song that came to mind as I read the prompt, so I went ahead with it. It explores a quiet, emotionally loaded moment shared between two people. The piece draws on the poignant knowledge that in the film, the lovers are living their final day together, which echoes into the lives of the listeners in the poem, acting as both a soundtrack and a catalyst for introspection. Hence, this artwork - Death and Life by Klimt, though some may find no correlation. 

Day Seventeen-NaPoWriMo-Alchemy of the Two

NaPoWriMo: ...now for our daily optional prompt. The surrealist painters Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington moved to Mexico during the height of World War II, where they began a life-long friendship. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem themed around friendship, with imagery or other ideas taken from a painting by Carrington, and a painting by Varo.

Day Seventeen-NaPoWriMo-Alchemy of the Two

Leonora Carrington-The-Lovers / Remedios Varo-The-Lovers (same title, different versions)

In a blue-walled casa, the air looms dense
Two sisters stir their tea with magic spells.
One with a wild robe, a defiant visionary
The other, a quiet soul, hid in the imaginary.

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Carrington and Varo are both my favourites (I do have a lot of favourites, though). I am in awe of the surrealists, the way they blend dreams with reality in unexpected ways. It is like a liminal space - irrational, strange, symbolic, challenging logic and convention. It is like perceiving someone else's dream and getting drawn into their mystery. What makes them so interesting is how they turn the bizarre into beauty, inviting you to see the world differently.

I had in mind the artworks titled The Lovers by both artists.

Day Sixteen-NaPoWriMo-In the Kitchen Steam

NaPoWriMo: Today, try writing a poem that imposes a particular song on a place. Describe the interaction between the place and the music using references to a plant and, if possible, incorporate a quotation – bonus points for using a piece of everyday, overheard language.

Image from Pinterest. Credit to the respective artist.

This needed an understanding of the Ragas. I love music, and I do listen to Carnatic and Hindustani and other soulful music, but I don't have the prowess to use it in depth in a poem. So I had to watch a couple of videos to gather a sense of it. I am adding two videos below, just in case you are curious. Sooryagayathri is one of my favourites, an exquisite gem in the ocean of Carnatic music. Indosoul Academy of Music has videos on Ragas called Know your Ragas and I found them while searching about Ragas. The Raga I had in mind was Hamsadhwani and the composition in Vathapi Ganapathim Bhajeham by Muthuswami Dikshitar (one of the Trinity of Carnatic Music, the other two being Thyagaraja and Shyama Shastri)

My humble attempt:

Day Sixteen-NaPoWriMo-In the Kitchen Steam

-raga in a busy kitchen-

The onions hit the oil—
that’s the resounding shruti*.
A sizzle, a breath—
the first note held just long enough
to stir the soul and the dal.

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

shruti, taala - musical references

murukku - crunchy snack, savoury

tulsi - sacred plant (holy basil)

milaku - pepper

Ganesha - Deity, symbolic of intellectual strength, adaptability, and efficiency. Remover of obstacles and bringer of good luck.

Vathapi Ganapathim by Sooryagayathri

Know your Raga - Hamsadhwani 

Day Fifteen-NaPoWriMo-Two Poems

NaPoWriMo: now for our (optional) daily prompt. The MC5 was a 1960s rock band. If you’ve heard anything by them–and you likely have–it’s their 1969 song Kick Out the Jams.

Jesse Crawford, otherwise known as Brother J.C. Crawford, was the band’s stage MC and warm-up man. Below are the words with which he opened a concert in Japan in 1969 (you can find the recording on Spotify/Apple Music as part of the Kick Out the James [Live] [Japan Remastered] album, on the track titled Intro/Ramblin’ Rose).

Brothers and sisters
I wanna see a sea of hands out there
Let me see a sea of hands
I want everybody to kick up some noise
I wanna hear some revolution out there, brothers
I wanna hear a little revolution
[big pause]
Brothers and sisters
The time has come for each and everyone of you to decide
Whether you are gonna be the problem
Or whether you are gonna be the solution (that’s right)
You must choose, brothers, you must choose
It takes five seconds, five seconds of decision
Five seconds to realize your purpose here on the planet
It takes five seconds to realize that it’s time to move
It’s time to get down with it
Brothers, it’s time to testify and I want to know
Are you ready to testify?!
Are you ready?!
I give you a testimonial
The MC5

And now here’s a short little poem by Jane Kenyon:

The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

And now for your prompt! While Brother J.C.’s warm-up and Kenyon’s poem might seem very different at first, they’re both informed by repetition, simple language, and they express enthusiasm. They have a sermon/prayer-like quality, and then end with a bang. Your challenge is to write a six-line poem that has these same qualities.

Here are my attempts, unsure of how suitable it is though.

Day Fifteen-NaPoWriMo-Two Poems

1

The-Cradle-Berthe Morisot-1872

Remember, remember!

The light that is shining bright

Can fade away overnight

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

2

Francisco Goya, Third of May, 1808, 1814

Scream, the blood. Scream, the blood

The blood leaps in the undercurrent

Passion ebbs and flows, the scream gets stuck

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Day Fourteen-NaPoWriMo-The Rise of a Riotous Song

NaPoWriMo: today, try writing a poem that describes a place, particularly in terms of the animals, plants or other natural phenomena there. Sink into the sound of your location, and use a conversational tone. Incorporate slant rhymes (near or off-rhymes, like “angle” and “flamenco”) into your poem. And for an extra challenge – don’t reference birds or birdsong!

Here's my take:

Henri Rousseau-Tropical Forest with Monkeys-1910

Day Fourteen-NaPoWriMo-The Rise of a Riotous Song

The river gurgled through the rocky bend

the hills woke up to the screeching calls

the chatter and gibber in the backdrop fend—

the chirps, the buzz, the hiss, and the clicks—

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Day Twelve: NaPoWriMo: Symphony of Ahalya: The Silence, the Song

NaPoWriMo: Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem inspired by Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Peter Quince at the Clavier.” It’s a complex poem that not only heavily features the idea of music, but is structured like a symphony. Its four sections, like symphonic movements, play with and expand on an overall theme, using the story of Susannah and the Elders as a backdrop.

Try writing a poem that makes reference to one or more myths, legends, or other well-known stories, that features wordplay (including rhyme), mixes formal and informal language, and contains multiple sections that play with a theme. Try also to incorporate at least one abstract concept – for example, desire or sorrow or pride or whimsy.

Ahalya by Raja Ravi Varma

I have chosen Ahalya's story here (a brief story is below the poem), one of the Panchakanya's (or the Five Maidens - powerful women from the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharatha). Symphony of Ahalya is a retelling of one of Indian mythology’s most enigmatic women — not merely as a cautionary tale, but as a meditation on beauty, desire, silence, and redemption. Through four poetic movements, this piece reimagines Ahalya’s journey: from divine creation to betrayal, from cursed stillness to awakening. Interweaving classical myth with contemporary voice, it explores how narratives shape women, how silence holds truth, and how rising is sometimes the most radical form of grace. This is not just her fall — it’s her song, her stillness, her becoming.

Day Twelve: NaPoWriMo: Symphony of Ahalya: The Silence, the Song

The Moonlight (The Making)

Desire - The birth of beauty and the gaze of gods

In dust, she dwelt not — no, divinely carved,
By Brahma’s thought, from dream unmarred.
Ahalya — not born, but breathed, like flame,
A name that even silence spoke in shame.

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

AHALYA: The tale of Ahalya is primarily found in the Bala-kandam of the Ramayan by sage Valmiki. Ahalya was a princess from the Puru Dynasty and was the wife of the great sage Gautama.

Ahalya's beauty was besotted by Lord Indira who was intent on seeking her companionship. Indra disguised himself as Gautama and Ahalya allowed Indra into her home. Gautama returned from his prayer to discover the misdeed. In addition to cursing Indra, he cursed Ahalya to turn to stone. The curse was to be absolved only when Sri Rama entered the precincts of the ashram. The curse of Ahalya is finally absolved when Sri Rama visits the ashram of Gautama before he reaches Mithila accompanied by the great sage Vishwamitra and his brother Lakshmana. (Google Arts and Culture)

 

Day Eleven-Napowrimo-Hopeful: A Villanelle

Napowrimo: today’s (optional) prompt. Take a look at Kyle Dargan’s “Diaspora: A Narcolepsy Hymn.” This poem is a loose villanelle that uses song lyrics as its repeating lines (loose because it doesn’t rhyme).  Your challenge is, like Dargan, to write a poem that incorporates song lyrics – ideally, incorporating them as opposing phrases or refrains. 

It's engaging and interesting to try so many different forms. I am learning so much along the process. Two of my favourite villanelles are Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" (which is mentioned in the Napowrimo post) - which I first came across in the movie, In Her Shoes and Dylan Thomas' "Do not Go Gentle into That Good Night".

Day Eleven-Napowrimo-Hopeful: A Villanelle

I can't think of anything tonight

Let alone engage, I am beyond reason in sight,

Darkness engulfs the light.

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

Day Ten-Napowrimo-Occam's razor

Napowrimo: our daily prompt (optional, as always). Yesterday, we looked at a poem that used sound in a very particular way, to create a slow and mysterious feeling. Mark Bibbins’ poem, “At the End of the Endless Decade,” uses sound very differently, with less eerieness and more wordplay. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that, like Bibbins’, uses alliteration and punning. See if you can’t work in references to at least one word you have trouble spelling, and one that you’ve never quite been able to perfectly remember the meaning of.

I am super glad that today's featured poem at Napowrimo is my previous poem - The Night Call. You can click the title to read)

image:2020 Science Archive-a still from the movie Contact

Day Ten-Napowrimo-Occam's razor*

Partly sifting sands

Of time

Maneuvering through the clumsiness

Of decked-up shelves

Of wisdom—

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**

*Occam's Razor: Occam’s razor is a principle often attributed to 14th–century friar William of Ockham that says that if you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one.

The Image is from the 1997 movie Contact. One of my favourite movies where the reference to Occam's Razor appears and that stuck in my mind ever since.

Day Nine-Napowrimo-The Night Call

Napowrimo: here’s our optional prompt for the day. Like music, poetry offers us a way to play with and experience sound. This can be through meter, rhyme, varying line lengths, assonance, alliteration, and other techniques that call attention not just to the meaning of words, but the way they echo and resonate against each other. For a look at some of these sound devices in action, read Robert Hillyer’s poem, Fog. It uses both rhyme and uneven line lengths to create a slow, off-kilter rhythm that heightens the poem’s overall ominousness. Today we’d like to challenge you to try writing a poem of your own that uses rhyme, but without adhering to specific line lengths. For extra credit, reference a very specific sound, like the buoy in Hillyer’s poem.

It was fun trying this prompt. In fact, I am loving all the prompts so far this year.

This poem was featured. Check HERE. Thank you, NaPoWriMo!!!

image: finflix-design-jon -Pixabay

Day Nine-Napowrimo-The Night Call

 

A night so long—

an erratically thumping heart!

Where do I belong?

Where do I even start?

 

**The poem has been removed to facilitate for submissions. Thank you for visiting.**