Smitha Vishwanath's Blog, page 10

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 12 : Bob Weir at the Guitar

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 […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 11: Gotta get up and try, try, try

Our resource for the day is the online collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, where you can find everything from a pair of bamboo-framed sunglasses to a very silly parody advertisement for talking toilet paper to a rococo coffee pot with a spout in the form of a rather gobsmacked sea-serpent. And last but not least, today’s (optional) prompt. Take a […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 10- Coming clean

Today’s featured resource is a virtual visit to the Sistine Chapel. I went there many years ago and marveled at the wonderful paintings (while also getting quite the crick in my neck from craning up to look at the ceiling). But when I went to talk over them later that day with the friend I was […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 9 : We walk in the wilderness

Our featured resource for the day is the online gallery of the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Although it may be most famous for its witch trials, Salem was a seafaring town whose sailors and shipowners brought back all manner of items from their travels – which became the initial source of the museum’s collection. The museum […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 8 : A Ghazal- His eyes

Today’s featured resource is a bit silly: it’s the Museum of Bad Art. Now, bad art – like good – is in the eye of the beholder, and I rather like some of the paintings in the museum’s whimsical collection.And now here’s today’s totally optional prompt!The ghazal (pronounced kind of like “huzzle,” with a particularly […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 7 : Why I’m not a sonnet

Today’s daily resource is the Canadian Museum of History. You can take a virtual tour, or enjoy several online exhibitions, including this one of Inuit prints from Cape Dorset.Finally, here’s our prompt for the day – as always, optional. A few days ago, we looked at Frank O’Hara’s poem in which he explained why he […]

Book Review 09/50, 2025 : Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

This is not the kind of book I’d generally read. But it’s been on my bookshelf; my younger daughter bought it because it’s supposed to  be good. After reading it, I can say it is but it’s a flavor that one needs to get used to like coconut oil in cooking – it’s great for […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 6 : Oranges

Painting : by me Today’s daily resource is the online tour section of the Louvre. Not in Paris? No problem! You can still stroll – albeit virtually – through the hallowed corridors of France’s most famous museum, checking out exhibitions on dance, puppetry, royal portraits, and more! Today’s prompt (optional, as always) veers slightly away from […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 5: Banks of a River

Our featured resource for the day is the online collection of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. There’s much to explore here, but just to get you started, why not peruse their images of beautifully designed and varied musical instruments, ranging from a guitar shaped like the moon to a rattle in the form of a bird that is peering suspiciously at […]

NaPoWriMo 2025, Day 4: Me and The painting in my living room

Today’s daily resource is the online exhibitions page of the International Folk Art Museum. I have a particular predilection for folk art, in which the strange and boisterous so often finds itself going hand-in-hand with practical objects of daily use. But the museum also showcases work of other sorts, like 100 Aspects of the Moon, […]