Beginning in 2016, I have each year taken up the National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) Challenge. Each April for the past five years, I have celebrated National Poetry Month by writing a new poem each day and then posting it here on my personal blog.
And I have loved doing this! I have learned so much–about poetry, about my own process and capacity as a poet, and about the world around me. I have gained confidence as a poet, and have exploded, for myself, at least, the myth of “writer’s block” for the lie that it is. I have also made some new friends in far-flung corners of the world. I am grateful to poet Maureen Thorson for facilitating this international enterprise since 2003, and invite you to take another look at her website dedicated to NaPoWriMo. (Perhaps you, too, would like to take up the challenge? If so, please let me know so I can cheer you on!)
And yet…almost from the first day of my participation, I have wrestled with an inherent conundrum, that of generating interesting and sometimes inspired work that is published before it can be revised and (possibly) submitted to journal editors for possible publication, since, perforce, it is already published on the day it is first hatched. Since 2016, I have written 150 poems, none of which would have come into being without the NaPoWriMo Challenge, many of which I would like to share with journal editors, but which are ineligible.
What to do?
Over the past year, I have dreamed up an experimental alternative. In 2021, I will again write one new poem each day in April. I will not, however, publish it here. Instead, for those who would like to read the new poems, I will share the poem via email. On this blog, I will share the context for the poem, any backstory and photographs that make sense.
If you would like to receive the April poems, one each day as they are written, please send me an email letting me know that before the end of March. My email is winonapoet@gmail.com.
I am cautiously optimistic about this approach. To test it out in advance, last fall I arranged to send a new poem each day for one week and a day (eight days in a row) to a poetry-loving friend. (Thanks, Beth!) The experience worked for me (though I missed some aspects of publishing the poem more widely and graphically and sharing the backstory.) I did write eight new poems. To date, one of these has been accepted by a journal and will be published this month. (More on that in a future post!)
Sometime after April, I will consider how it has gone from my point of view and will share that here. I would be glad to know, too, from your point of view, should you wish to share, how it is to receive the April poems as they are circulated privately, a modern way of sharing in manuscript form.
Meanwhile, on April 1–no joke!–let the games begin!
Yours in the spirit of poetry,
