National Poetry Month Is On

 Poets, rev your metaphors, get your enjambment on!

National Poetry Month began yesterday.
I'm doing NaPoWriMo again this year, but I won't be posting the poems.

That pesky "previously published."  This year I will also be making a concerted effort at publication, and many journals define "previously published" as published anywhere, including blogs.

I can write about writing my poems though....


 Wrote a poem yesterday. About place.
 Hope to write another one today. And tomorrow....and the next day....the next....for thirty days.
 I've done this twice and to complete it does many things for me. It gives me a few solid poems and a lot of first drafts to work with. And there is something about finishing this project that sets an energy for me to finish others. A completed NaPoWriMo is more than the sum of its thirty poems.

Currently I'm reading "The Triggering Town /Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing" by Richard Hugo.

Here's a bit I like from the first essay, Writing off the Subject:

"...Don't be afraid to jump ahead. There are a few people who become more interesting the longer they stay on a single subject. But most people are like me, I find. The longer they talk about one subject, the duller they get. Make the subject of the next sentence different from the subject of the sentence you just put down. Depend on rhythm, tonality, and the music of language to hold things together.  It is impossible to write meaningless sequences. In a sense the next thing always belongs. In the world of imagination, all things belong. If you take that on faith, you may be foolish, but foolish like a trout...."


For your poetry needs this month and all the months after:

http://www.poets.org/

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/