2026 NaPM 30 April

[RiverNotch]

Write a poem for National Poetry Month based on the topic described....rather, write a poem set in, pertaining to, or inspired by the given region, whether its entirety or just some part of it, as this year's prompts are going to be unified by the theme "Around the World" like last year's prompts were unified by the theme "Esoterica". Each poem should appear as a separate reply to this thread. There are three levels of participation:

Bronze. Participated at least once.

Silver. Participated every day.

Gold. Participated every day, with all entries either being the same form (e.g., every one a sonnet) or being distinct forms (e.g., no two haiku).


Today's region is Southern Africa, including Ascension, Saint Helena, and Tristan da Cunha.

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There's one more NaPM-related thread after this, with an extra prompt!

[dukealien]

Leading from Within


Distant Southern Africa, lands to which some
came by ship or driving their cattle, fighting
over which bunch is more deserving, so the
rest can be robbed for

its advantage.  There’s an exception, strangely,
nation with no coastline or harbor, holding
in its borders dry Kalahari and a
miracle called Botswana

where it’s said the people are not obsessed with
races, grudges,  minding their business like some
promised land, a peaceable kingdom all the
world could well follow.

[RiverNotch]

Namibia and Botswana


Consider these two desert countries, neither
having much value in terms of their position
nor (when first by their colonial masters

found) in terms of nature's hardly hidden
gifts, today more stable than their neighbors
yet only one's more prosperous, the poorer

still caught up in the games its masters played,
facing first genocide then apartheid,
the richer completely superfluous---the former

never within its borders finding wealth,
the latter after freedom striking gems.
Stability is simply never catching

so much attention that what greedy empires
cast you a lurid glance still leave your borders
meek and organic, free from ethnic strife,

and what lands lie between them scarcely scoured,
whereas prosperity is just as simply
the luck of the draw, the proper set of cards

dealt at the proper time by a proper hand.
History, as it is, has little greatness
except in its consequences, in the burdens
carried by its survivors and their offspring.