National Poetry Writing Month 2022 April 10th 2022

History of National Poetry Writing Month

National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

My History with National Poetry Writing Month

I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.

April 10th Poetry Prompt

Today’s (optional) prompt is pretty simple – a love poem!

April 10th Poem

The Spiderman is Having You for Dinner Tonight

10 April 2022

It was another cold winter back in the Midwest

She took what she wanted

Another notch on her bedpost

And as she was my first

I gave it freely in her parent's basement

After work we met

And as we commenced, I saw a poster on the wall

It was of the band who she had playing on the record

And when the words came through my copulation fog

I bit down on her neck

And exploded inside

As I looked at the drummer with lust in my eyes

Silently saying you wish you were here don’t you

As the lullaby played that night

My next foray where I explored this emotion

Came from another man who was more than most could take

He was kind and gentle and gave me an out

To define myself that I could accept

He did derive pleasure from my loins

But knew that this would never last

It was in the days of don’t Ask

So, we didn’t tell

Until years later when some were treated to a seat at the table

And right after my tryst with him came another woman

Who I thought we would make a family together

Only to find out she was bearing the child of her past lover

I’ve dealt with vampires before

Their sweet voices and lurid promises

Kept me on the hook for so many years

Draining my mind, emotion and money away

Until I was draining all the pills in the medicine cabinet

Slicing my arms to feel something other than used, spent and broken

I learned how to be taken from the earliest days father, brother

I learned that I was worth only as much as I could give others pleasure

Physical, emotional or monetary

Losing a love for ten years only to have her come back into my arms

It felt like a feeling, something pure, something unknown

It felt like she didn’t give a damn about the past

It felt like she didn’t want to compare horror stories

She wanted the one who is behind these eyes

She wanted the one who lost so much he had nothing to give except

What he presented as his heart

And then we came together and made a family

Every day she knows that I not only say the word she wants

She feels it

And I pass that along to our children

As they sometimes roll their eyes and say

Papa we know You say it every day

And I see commercials with brides holding the hands of their fathers

Walking down aisles in the warm summer light

And I cry a tear each time

If I could ask one favor of the universe

Because I know I am not worth

It is to see them at their happiest

That is my love poem that is yet to be written

Reaching Out

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.