Day Twenty Eight-NaPoWriMo – Let it Roll On – A Poem Inspired by Chenda Melam

NaPoWriMo: today’s prompt (optional, as always). Music features heavily in human rituals and celebrations. We play music at parties; we play it in parades, and at weddings. In her poem, OBIT [Music], Victoria Chang describes the role that music played in her mother’s funeral. Today, we challenge you to write a poem that involves music at a ceremony or event of some kind.

Today’s poem is an experiment in rhythm, repetition, and musical energy. I drew inspiration from chenda melam, the vibrant percussion ensemble tradition of Kerala, where sound, tempo, and movement build in waves. This is my first time trying something like this, and I found the process both exciting and meditative. Here's the poem:

Artist-Devassia-Devagiri

Day Twenty Eight-NaPoWriMo – Let it Roll On
A Poem Inspired by Chenda Melam


Let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on

drums and sticks and drums and sticks on
drums and sticks and drums and sticks on

let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on

look here, look here, look here, swing on
look here, look there, look on swing on
let it roll on, let it slow down
let it trumpet, let it go on

swing here, swing there, let it move on
swing here, swing there, let it move on

let it let it let it roll on
let it let it let it roll on

bells and cymbals, cymbals play on
bells and cymbals, cymbals play on
sway here, sway there, let it cling on
sway here, sway there, let it cling on

let it roll on, let it speed up
let it roll on, let it speed up

letitletitletit rollon
letitletitletit rollon
letitletitletit rollon
letitletitletit rollon

Note on Chenda Melam:

Chenda Melam is a traditional percussion ensemble performed during temple festivals in Kerala, India. The central instrument, the chenda, is a cylindrical drum played with sticks, known for its deep, resonant sound. A full melam can involve dozens—or even hundreds—of performers, creating intricate rhythmic layers that build slowly in speed and intensity. The result is a powerful, immersive musical experience that resonates not just in the ears but throughout the body. This poem attempts to capture a fragment of that energy in words.

Let me know what you think—or if you’ve ever tried writing with rhythm as your guide. This year's NaPoWriMo is concluding in three days! 

Thanks for reading!

Day Twenty Seven-NaPoWriMo-Inheritance

NaPoWriMo: today’s optional prompt. W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” takes its inspiration from a very particular painting: Breughel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” Today we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that describes a detail in a  painting, and that begins, like Auden’s poem, with a grand, declarative statement.

image: Smarthistory.org
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes, 1611–12-- 1620–21

Day Twenty Seven-NaPoWriMo-Inheritance
After Artemisia

They knew how to bleed without dying
Hold it! Let me behead Holofernes
Judith sliced through his bones and mass
Poised and gracious
She held him by the hair,
as one holds memory—tight, bitter, unrelenting

The blade didn’t slip; it knew the course
as if rehearsed on sleepless nights,
each sinew parting like fabric,
each drop a psalm spoken backward.

Judith’s white sleeves, soaked in history—
the kind they won’t write down.
Look! The maid does not flinch,
holds the bowl like scripture.
Not vengeance—no. A translation—
of silence into scream, of memory into blade,

passed down through locked jaws
and fists clenched beneath silks.
This is not a myth but a survival.
It is not enough to remember.

You must retell it—with muscle, with color,
with the sharp edge of inheritance.

Day Twenty Six-NaPoWriMo: here’s your prompt! Try your hand at a sonnet – or at least something “sonnet-shaped.” Think about the concept of the sonnet as a song, and let the format of a song inform your attempt. Be as strict or not strict as you want.

Day Twenty Six-NaPoWriMo-Sonnet in the Language of Wounds

I traced your pulse through silence, vein by vein,

Where starlight sank in skin like whispered thread.
You wore your sorrow soft, like summer rain—
A body blooming poems where it bled.

Your blood coagulates beautifully,
Each cut a constellation sealed in red,
As if your ache obeyed some symphony
That only broken angels ever read.

You taught me love is not a flawless flame,
But breath that lingers long after the burn.
You never begged the wound to leave the same—
You only asked the heart to please return.

And in that hush, where scars became their art,
You healed the world by holding your own heart.

Day Twenty Five – NaPoWriMo – The Handpan

NaPoWriMo: Today we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that recounts an experience of your own in hearing live music, and tells how it moves you. It could be a Rolling Stones concert, your little sister’s middle school musical, or just someone whistling – it just needs to be something meaningful to you.

Day Twenty Five –  NaPoWriMo – The Handpan

Image: From Etsy- Credit to the due Artist

The Handpan

A tribute to Anas Al Halabi

Waves danced before my eyes—

—the ebb and flow,

the ebb and flow—

a tangled memory

rolled into stillness,

the hot air, a mirage,

the music tingled in my bones—

like sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa.

 

Each beat an echo surging

through the blood and cells,

myriad mountains rose and fell—

like the tremor of a tuning fork

my body trilled into tranquility.

 

I closed my eyes—

found myself in a psychedelic swing.

If music be the food of love,

play on…

 

Anas Al Halabi

Anas is a handpan artist in Dubai and I have heard that he is the founder of the first Handpan orchestra. You can see him play here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHxyh9pv-0x/ 

About Handpan

The handpan traces its origins back to the steelpan, which emerged in the 1930s in Trinidad and Tobago. Originally crafted from discarded oil barrels, steelpan (or steel pan) instruments provided a melodic range that captivated listeners and became an integral part of the Caribbean music scene.

From this rich musical heritage, the handpan would eventually emerge.

In the early 2000s, Swiss instrument makers named Felix Rohner and Sabina Schärer introduced the Hang instrument, a pioneering handpan design, through the Swiss company PANart. Inspired by the steelpan, the Hang featured a unique layout of tone fields, producing enchanting and ethereal sounds.

Day Twenty Three- NaPoWriMo-Koel’s Call

NaPoWriMo: Today, we’d like to challenge you to write your own poem that focuses on birdsong. Need examples? Try A.E. Stallings’ “Blackbird Etude,” or for an old-school throwback, Shelley’s “To a Skylark.”

Day Twenty Three- NaPoWriMo-Koel’s Call

Art: Chinese School - Koel from Drawings of Birds from Malacca c1805- 18

Every morning, I close my eyes

to listen—
to listen to that birdsong

miles away from my homeland,
from that mango tree
from that once-flourishing garden
where dreams hung on lush threads.
The sky is bluer and the grass greener
There—

koel’s cuhoo cuhoo echoing
through the air.
Mesmerized, I pause—
to breathe—
inhale its palpable song
inhale its saccharine sweetness
inhale its inky blackness—

as if its imprint will give me a voice
to sing my song to freedom.

Coincidentally, two days back in the afternoon, I was speaking to my mother over the phone, and I could hear the Koel’s song in the backdrop—it drew me in. It always does. I live far from home, and the simple bird song brought me an entire world of feelings. It was as if the Koel became a bridge between my mother and me, between the present and the past, between where I was and where my heart longs to be.