Each day the folks at NaPoWriMo are offering a prompt, and I'll start there and see what happens. I'm using my daily drafts to work on a middle grade book with the working title of TREEOGRAPHY, so there will be a lot of tree drafts this month.
APR 21 In her poem, Names and Nicknames, Monika Kumar reminisces over various nicknames she has been given, the actual name her mother gave her, and the way both names and nicknames indicate a claim and an intimacy at once. In your poem for today, we challenge you to write your own poem in which you muse on your name and nicknames you’ve been given or, if you like, the name and nicknames for an animal, plant, or place.
https://www.napowrimo.net/
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Place Names
The Bamboo Forest, of course–that’s what it is. But other places have more mysterious names: Grape Jelly Tunnel,
Bailey’s Honeysuckle Fence,
The Easter Sunrise Dogwoods,
Nurse Billyfoot’s Bush.
There are others who know one or two of the names, but only I know them all,
labeled on the map of my mind.
My Weeping Curtain Room.
If we should find ourselves meeting more than once in the same place, a place we mark
by its tree or bush, by our tongues or noses, by the time of day or the mood we bring,
we’ll name it together:
The Meeting Maple or
Bushwhacker’s Wood,
Beech Beach or
The Golden Carpet.
draft ©HM 2026
I like this poem and those creative, pleasing names.
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