National No Poetry Writing Month

Like most good things, it happened by accident. All of a sudden it was April. I had a conference to prepare for. I had to put my ancient, beloved cat Schubert to sleep. I had to upbraid myself for thinking that it was a good idea to deal with all of this at the same time. There were student poems that needed comments, and they weren't going anywhere. A colossal project that my daughter had to do for 2nd grade. And so National No Poetry Writing Month began, with frantic cute-dress shopping, frequent hysterics over the loss of Schubert, a million messages in the inbox, a million.5 student poems, and a calendar that just kept rolling.

Now we're over halfway done with April, and the conference is history, and I still haven't written a poem. I am totally fine with it. This weekend I cleaned my entire house instead of writing poems. I commented on other people's poems. I read Barbara Guest's poems for my class. I missed Schubert. I tried to like my other cats a little more (I only have three now! That's, like, almost normal people numbers).

Anyway, once May is here I'll be a loaded gun. I've taken time off before. But as of right now, I declare April 2010 to be my National No Poetry Writing Month. As I think of new ways to observe it, I will share them. So far I have tried: telling people how I feel, rather than cloaking the same ideas in poems. The results: to be determined, but so far not terribly impressive.

To be continued. Rest in peace, Schubert.