Flower-People, Weather-Hackers, and Bookmark Nightcrawlers
A selection of poems from the first week of NaPoWriMo
Dear Readers,
The first week of Poetry Writing Month brought an extraordinary outpouring of creativity, with nearly five hundred submissions that showcased how our community explored, celebrated, and attempted the prompts with remarkable zeal.
We began with the prompt “People as Flowers,” which inspired the most submissions. Ann Lilly Jose’s “Slice open a Sad Guy” performed a floral autopsy on grief, spilling not gore but gardens: wilting hibiscus, dirty marigolds, vile jasmines. Her language was both unflinching and delicate, brutal in its honesty and tender in its metaphors.
slice open a sad guy; you'll find in him a memoir,
of post-valentine roses and white, vile jasmines,
cursed by a tender storm—crushed / by touch.
Ishita Desai’s “The Garden of Girlfriends” drew a tender parallel between her girlfriends and bougainvilleas—resilient, wild, and quietly revolutionary. With vivid imagery and gentle strength, she celebrated the way women bloomed on their own terms, turning even the harshest corners into places of color, beauty, and possibility.
I see my girlfriends in bougainvilleas,
The way they bloom without asking,
bright and wild, colours bursting,
stubbornly climbing, twirling and gripping,
whatever surfaces they can find.
Viplav Singh’s “Pita agar phool hote, toh hote Gende / If fathers were flowers, they would be marigolds” offered a quiet, evocative tribute to fatherhood, rooted in the earthy metaphor of the marigold flower. Unlike roses that are cherished, the marigold is used—worn, offered, draped, then forgotten. The poem drew a gentle yet striking comparison between fathers and this flower, both essential and reliable, yet often withering in silence without demanding recognition.
On day two, the prompt “Being in Control of Your City’s Weather for One Day” sparked imaginative leaps. Anurag Mohanty and Keerthi Reddy Kuncham delivered the most creative attempts. Keerthi envisioned the sun spilling in fractured ribbons, its yolk breaking and falling on rooftops as golden yellow:
The sun spills out in fractured ribbons,
a broken yolk staining rooftops gold—
but I pinch it between my fingers at noon,
let the light tremble, then snuff it out,
replacing warmth with a hush of silver rain.
while Anurag imagined placing his cat on the sky’s nose, ready to wield weather with whimsical wizardry.
I would wring the clouds like wet linen,
let them weep for their days of yore,
so the lakes might remember their names.
Day three’s prompt, “Manifesto of an Underground Press,” called for bold voices in times of increasing censorship. Aishwarya Roy and Sneha Roy responded with powerful clarity. Aishwarya highlighted state atrocities with unsparing detail:
Journalists who ask the wrong questions
end up in morgues,
and their killers in Parliament.
while Sneha advocated for truth’s resilience, noting how it mushrooms even in the most unlikely places.
truth mushrooms even in the most unlikeliest of places, thriving all the more in the wet unworthiness of the world and its weariness
Day four’s prompt, “A Jungle’s final lullaby,” evoked deep ecological grief. Ananya Dasghosh’s “Demigods, Demolition and Dividends” was a fierce, lyrical outcry for forests silenced by destruction, caught in the crossfire of politics and greed.
All things diminishing, and everything’s unholy
because God's creation is at the altar and
we are still making prayers on discounted rates.
Shama Mahajan’s “Error Code: You are trying to find something that no longer exists” wove a haunting dirge from myth, technology, and children’s stories, mourning extinct futures and collective apathy.
you wait in your beds for the alarms to ring
to take your kids to the zoo in the morning
but don’t look into their eyes
when you show them a peacock in its cage,
You might turn into a stone.
On day five, “Self-Portrait as Your Online Shopping Cart,” poets turned consumption into a mirror of the self. Keerthi Reddy Kuncham’s “The Ache of Almosts” crafted a self-portrait in objects never purchased but deeply felt—a velvet chair, a journal, a scarf—each standing for emotions too complex to name outright.
Fairy lights—
for the ceiling I confess to
each night,
stringing stars
above my undone prayers.
Mrittika Chatterjee’s “Things My Shopping Cart Contains” cataloged emotional inheritance through Dostoevsky novels, clove tea, jhumkas, and puzzle boxes, bridging generations and cultures with quiet loss.
Some dreams don't break—
they yellow,
waiting at stations
while the passenger flies elsewhere.
For day six, “The Secret Nightlife of Bookmarks,” Avni Aryan invited readers into a whimsical scene. Her poem “A Party in the Reader’s Bedroom” transformed the quiet chaos of late-night reading into an imaginative celebration, where bookmarks—tickets, feathers, paper clips, polaroids—came alive at 2 a.m. for a bookish gathering, a playful ode to stories and the objects that hold them.
The paper bookmarks straighten their creases as they break-dance dance
and the theatre tickets criticize the movie adaptation with enthusiasm
Finally, day seven’s prompt, “The Family WhatsApp Group is a Living Room with No Exits,” captured the digital intimacy of modern family life. Ritu Jain’s poem likened the group chat to a cluttered living room—filled with voice notes, emojis, unspoken tension, and everyday affection.
The first good morning text
pulls back the curtains—
a digital sunrise that arrives even before the day begins.
Khatija Khan’s “Sultanate of Pseudo Intellectuals” turned the chaos of forwarded messages and gifs into an affectionate microcosm, where love persists amid the noise.
wherever there is a ventilation of love,
even a living room without an exit door
does not suffocate you
You can read all the featured poems on our blog.
As we turn the page into the second week with a fresh set of prompts, we’d also like to acknowledge the many submissions that moved us deeply, even if we couldn’t feature them all. Here are a few that stood out with their distinct voices and emotional resonance:
Nikhita’s “Mommy & Rhododendrons” offered a tender memory of her mother entwined with the scent of spring blossoms—a quiet, powerful homage to care and endurance.
While the red blooms will only last a season,
she will wait, year after year,
for their quiet return.
They carry a sense of belonging,
the rhododendrons, just like my mother,
leave behind a scent like home.
Manav Mota’s “Self-Portrait in Four Abandoned Tabs” explored the quiet ache of unfinished desires and digital disarray, rendering procrastination as poetry.
I do not check out.
I linger—
like doubt.
Like longing that pretends to be choice.
Swati’s “I’m tempted to call upon for spring again” captured the beauty of Delhi’s red-semal trees blooming above unrest—a bittersweet ode to the city's contradictions.
I’m tempted to call upon for spring again
Red-semal-flowers on otherwise barren trees of Delhi
They make me feel like
I could be anywhere beautiful in the world
Sakshi Argade’s “Pawprints from the Sketchbooks of Toddlers” mourned ecological loss through the lens of childhood sketches—where the wild exists only in memory and myth.
Pawprints from the sketchbooks of toddlers
enclose themselves in museums talking about fairytales
from the faraway planet, where the concept of coexistence
oozes out of each brain surviving winds of heaven
We’re certain that many more of these remarkable voices will find their spotlight in the weeks ahead. Your poems are the heartbeat of this month, and we can’t wait to see where the prompts lead you next.
Warmly,
Shivam