It’s National Poetry month! 🤸🏽♀️
If you follow many poets on social media, you’re probably bumping into fresh poems and prompts wherever you turn. Which can be super inspiring and such a lovely change of inputs from the usual scroll. I love seeing the different directions writers take the same prompts. Poets of all kinds being celebrated. And the energy of so many people making and sharing poems the entire month.
I also know many of us have felt less able to generate much this last little while. So if you’re someone who wants to be making, and for all the reasons, hasn’t been/isn’t able to right now, that’s perfectly okay too.
And, since we’re already inundated with prompts, my only prompt for you is to take yourself out to write at least once in April. Out to the front yard, out to a park, a coffee shop, a parking lot. Ideally somewhere you enjoy being. Somewhere with sunshine. But at the very least, somewhere you can be (mostly!) alone for a few minutes, a change of scene. Maybe bring along a poetry book you like and begin by just reading and savoring.
Then, hear Carrie Fountain’s advice: “When I sit down to do my own writing, I have above my computer the writing advice that William Stafford gave, which is: lower your standards. That is everything. Lower your standards and begin. I see that every morning. And I sit and think, I’m not going to write anything. My brain is like, no, no, no. And then it’s like, Okay, let me just do it. Then I go into writing that’s so low stakes that it doesn’t matter. And that’s where it all comes from!”
The process — the work and tuning of attention, the showing up to try, and the opening to creativity and self-authoring and witnessing and revision — is as important and life-enriching as whatever you make.
Something to try:
When reading a poem, make a mark/stick a post-it note or write down the lines where you feel something, or really love what the poet did. Even if (especially if) you’re not sure yet why or how it’s creating the effect it does. As we read and write more poetry, this can help our brains notice patterns and techniques, and can give us a collection of moves to explore.
One tip on starting:
“To go somewhere, you have to start somewhere. Being oriented at the outset of a poem offers the promise of being pleasantly disoriented later as the poem moves into more complex territory where the waters are more strangely stirred. Opening lines are where readers often look for their bearings.” Billy Collins
And now, April’s gathering of poems →
No need to read them all in one go. Come back as many times as you want throughout the month.
You’re not behind. And your life, as you’re living it, is full of poetry. I’m so glad you’re here. ♡ brinn
Brinn! Another great banquet of beautiful poems and prompts for our poetry nourishment and delight. Thank you.