NaPoWriMo Begins!
It is 1st April, which means two things: You have a few more hours to play practical jokes on unsuspecting people (nothing will ever live up to the BBC News report showing spaghetti harvesters at work, picking strands of spaghetti from the branches of trees), and more importantly it is the start of #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month.
During #NaPoWriMo you are challenged to write a poem each day during the month of April. It works in the same way as the more well-known National Novel Writing Month, #NaNoWriMo and nobody is going to turn up with thumb screws if you sign up and don't keep to the poem per day pace.
It's all about encouragement to reach the targets you set for yourself. In #NaNoWriMo that works with targets for the number of words you want to write every day. In #NaPoWriMo the logical target is to write a poem every day. That is generally not a speed I'm comfortable writing poetry at. For me I would set a more practical goal of completing one poem per week, but making sure that the poem received editing on some days and simple thinking time on other days. I might try re-telling the poem from a different point of view, or in a different tense; I might move it from earth to Alpha Centauri, or from the sea to the bottom of a volcano, just to see how that might influence the final end-of-week result.
Whatever target you decide on, have a poetically productive April. Now, go harvest your spaghetti before it's lunch time, and then write a poem about it :)
I did write poems at a rate of one (or more!) per day over Easter but I think I was on the manic end of the spectrum and that pace couldn’t be sustained without likely cerebral injury. I actually struggle to digest a poem a day from the American Academy of Poets and many slip past unread. I like your poem-a-week target, with time between for edit and reflection. Does this mean you will still be aiming for a blog post per week too? Or perhaps the poem becomes the post… ? Best of luck with it . I am tempted to join you.
Yes, my aim is to keep writing one blog update per week; I can sustain that while not letting it get in the way of poetry writing. This morning I’ve been revising an older poem which is now destined for the Poetry Ireland and Butler’s Chocolate Cafes competition (details on the Poetry Ireland website, deadline 14th April.) … prizes involve chocolate so I shall probably write one poem a day on the themes of coffee and chocolate, in the hope of gettting fed 😉