{"id":137990607,"date":"2025-11-13T14:04:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T20:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=137990607"},"modified":"2025-11-13T22:01:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T04:01:01","slug":"naani-naani-novembers-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/naani-naani-novembers-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Naani Naani November’s Here!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Entranced<\/h2>\n
\u201cAre you all right?\u201d he asked, and I\r\nstared down the dim-lit tunnel of the past\r\nentranced by ghosts who flickered into view\r\nand one by one began to drift, themselves \r\nentranced and drawn into a halo-snare\r\nof amber light. So deep within my reverie was I,\r\nI did not feel the cold as he removed\r\nhis warm hand from my arm. I did not feel\r\nhim drift away despite the chill, the gooseflesh\r\ncold and damp along my spine. Long-buried \r\nspecters stealthily crept near, replacing him \r\nwith all they had to offer me\u2014\r\ncold cowardice and death.<\/pre>\n
\n
The prompt for this poem appears at November PAD Chapbook Challenge Archives – Writer’s Digest<\/a> – Day 1. I’m not even pretending to play catch-up at this point, but credit for inspiration where credit’s due, eh?<\/p>\n
\n
Naani Naani Boo Boo<\/h2>\n
Schoolyard taunts\u2014\r\ndefiant defense\r\nagainst a bully\r\nwhose battle cry\r\nstings like sticks and stones.\r\n<\/pre>\n
\n
The form used for the poem, \u201cNaani Naani Boo Boo,\u201d above, is called a \u201cnaani.\u201d It is a Telugu form \u2013 each line having 3-5 syllables and no more than 20-25 syllables, in total. It is a syllabic form ported from a language unlike English which, in my opinion, makes it less suited to English poetry than many other forms. I feel this way about most syllabic verse, including the ever-popular haiku. But I was introduced to it by Barbara Ehrentreu<\/a>, and challenged to write one, so here we are. I chose the title to amuse our friend Stephen Bagley<\/a>, who said we\u2019d never be able to hear the name of the form and not think \u201cNaani Naani Boo Boo.\u201d That led to the subject of the poem.<\/p>\n
\n
Poetry in Texas and Other States<\/h2>\n
Poets:<\/strong> Are you aware of your state’s poetry society and what it has to offer? That members are also members of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies<\/a>?<\/p>\n
Texas poets:<\/strong> Are you a member of the Poetry Society of Texas<\/a>? If not, why<\/em> not? It’s easy to join – just visit https:\/\/poetrysocietyoftexas.org\/join\/<\/a>. You can email a photocopy of the form and pay dues online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not doing NaNoWriMo these days, but maybe I can write 30 poems in a month. Or not. One of these is inspired by Robert Brewer’s 11\/1\/25 prompt for the PAD challenge; the other is a form I was challenged to try by Barbara Ehrentreu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[],"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 21:16:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990607"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990611,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990607\/revisions\/137990611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990607"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}