"Poem" of the Week: 2.29.24

Leap Day special

There was one more day of February this year, and I still don’t have a new poem for you. C’est la vie, is what I would say if I were French. But I’m not. So I present to you:

SOME (MORE) NOVELLA SCRAPS.
This time with drawings!

by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira

(Note: this is a work in progress, and random bits of a larger work. Please progress.)

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Look—I never claimed I was a visual artist.

About a month ago, I mentioned I’m writing a full-length novella for a grad school class. Here’s that post if you missed it.

I think I’ll blame novella-writing on my lack of poetic production this quarter. It’s hard to be creative, in case you didn’t already know.

Hopefully one day I’ll share with you the completed novella. As for the drawings, it essentially went down like this in class:

Classmate 1: Love your characters! They’re each so different!

Classmate 2: What if you drew them???

Classmate 1: Yeah! Draw them! Show us what they look like!

Ricky: Uhh ok. Are you sure?

Like I said, I’m not a visual artist. But, if math classes in school taught me anything, I do know how to absent-mindedly doodle. They were well-received by said classmates, who used words like “weird” and “grotesque” and “awesome” to describe their admiration.

Prosaically, Ricky