Well, National Poetry Month is finally here. I could feel it the moment I stepped on the cold hardwood floor this morning. It's also no coincidence that the rains today have subsided, leaving us with a brilliant blue sky, and hopefully some warm weather.With moving the calendar to April, I realized that I must immediately begin planning our Poem in Your Pocket Day festivities. I'll be returning from a reading in Cincinnati that day (4/30), and it's our last day of class. I'd like to do some kind of action project, nonetheless. Maybe something involving lobsters on leashes, and lots of red paint.
There's a fantastic list of judges for this contest, including yours truly. What a thrill to be in such company.
I'm deliberating over doing a NAPO. When I do a NAPO-esque poem a day thing, it's usually not in April. This is my craziest month, by far. Thesis defenses, daffodils to crush with my heel, advising up the wazoo. Thankfully I am training my replacement right now in many of my duties, as next year I move on to directorland.
Are you doing a NAPO? How on earth do you make the time?
Going to see Robert Hill Long and Allison Benis White tonight at the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. I will not be writing my poem du jour during that reading.
10 comments:
Say hi to Allison for me!
Mary-
I'm just forcing out a poem a day and some will definitely be better than others and as William Stafford says-- I just lower my standards.
I'm sure some days my *poem* will have to be in quotes... I wrote a "poem." I'm playing fast and loose with that definition this month!
Leslie--I will! I'm having dinner with her tonight too.
Kelli--that's a good idea. I can write a "poem."
I have absolutely no life. But then, you knew that.
I was going to write something about poem-a-day projects or something, but then I saw my word verification was "healious," a wonderful combination of healing and hellious, and that seemed to sum it up.
I am not writing a poem-a-day this month. I think I am just going to sleep.
i have no idea how i'm making the time-- just hoping the day job doesn't fall to bits during all this. but i need it! Also, i think keeping my expectations low is helping :)
Making time for actual writing is less of an issue for me than trying to keep a "write-poetry" mindset going all day. When it works you can work on your poem all day without actually sitting down to write. When it works, that is...
I did the poem-a-day in April last year, more or less as an experiment, and found it an interesting experiment. I had a notion to do it again this year, though haven't written anything the past two days, so maybe won't make the attempt this time.
In general, every day I sit for at least a little while with my poem notebooks open in front of me, either to a blank page or to a poem in progress, and see if I can write anything.
Sometimes the poem well is temporarily dry, and when that happens I just need to wait it out.
I don't really make time. I just try to plan my life for the maximum amount of open time, and then in April this crap fills it up.
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