It’s National Poetry Month! My #NaPoWriMo Poem-A-Day project is Playing With Poetry. I am tagging along with Margaret Simon, Jone MacCulloch, and Mary Lee Hahn. We will be playing with Haikubes, Magnetic Poetry, Metaphor Dice, and Paint Chip Poetry (I raided Home Depot). I’m even throwing in nail polish color names as inspiration, just for fun! Play along, if you’d like! We are using the Twitter hashtag #playwithpoetryNPM to see what poetic mischief everyone is getting into.
Here is a silly nail polish color name dialogue poem for two voices to start your Saturday. It’s been floating around in my head for a week now and finally landed in my NPM project notebook.

Pick a color. Just Lanai-ing Around Too bright. Something duller.
Almost ready? Don’t Pretzel My Buttons I need a pedi.
Come on, lady! Kiss Me, I’m Brazilian Too bright! I’m afraidy!
Pick a color!
— Christie Wyman, 2019 (draft)
A peek into my poem and process:
- If you have ever been to a nail salon, you know how overwhelming the options are!
- I don’t go to a salon all that often. Just during sandal season, primarily. The gentleman who does my nails, Louie, is hilarious. We have a crazy running banter, very much like the dialogue in my poem, while I stare forever at the wall of color.
- His voice is on the left, mine on the right, and the color names down the center are actual OPI or Essie color names.
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And introducing….
On Monday, the Poetry Friday family launched the 7th annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem organized by author/poet, Irene Latham. (Click here to learn more.) Many of us have signed up to provide a line for the 2019 poem. Author/poet Matt Forrest Esenwine kicked things off with some familiar “found” phrases merged to get us going. Today Tara at Going to Walden adds the next line. I’m excited to provide the 14th line on Sunday, April 14th. I hope you’ll join us to see what happens! Here’s the itinerary for the poem.
April
1 Matt @Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme
2 Kat @Kathryn Apel
3 Kimberly @KimberlyHutmacherWrites
4 Jone @DeoWriter
5 Linda @TeacherDance
6 Tara @Going to Walden
7 Ruth @thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown
8 Mary Lee @A Year of Reading
9 Rebecca @Rebecca Herzog
10 Janet F. @Live Your Poem
11 Dani @Doing the Work that Matters
12 Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
13 Doraine @Dori Reads
14 Christie @Wondering and Wandering
15 Robyn @Life on the Deckle Edge
16 Carol @Beyond LiteracyLink
17 Amy @The Poem Farm
18 Linda @A Word Edgewise
19 Heidi @my juicy little universe
20 Buffy @Buffy’s Blog
21 Michelle @Michelle Kogan
22 Catherine @Reading to the Core
23 Penny @a penny and her jots
24 Tabatha @The Opposite of Indifference
25 Jan @Bookseestudio
26 Linda @Write Time
27 Sheila @Sheila Renfro
28 Liz @Elizabeth Steinglass
29 Irene @Live Your Poem
30 Donna @Mainely Write
This is so much fun! I laughed when I read it! The way you used the image behind it is so perfect too, leaving readers like me to wonder the names of ALLLLLLL of them. xx
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Naming them would be a fun job, right? xx
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This so playful, Christie! I like how you incorporated the nail polish names in the center. Poems in two voices are the best!
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They are fun, aren’t they? Thanks, Molly!
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Every time I go into a salon, they say, “Pick a color.” I hear it in a Vietnamese accent. Getting pedis is something I do with my daughters. Such a treat.
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