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 11th Poetry Prompt
And now for our (optional) prompt. Following up on yesterday’s love poem, I have for you another deceptively simple challenge. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about a very large thing. It could be a mountain or a blue whale or a skyscraper or a planet or the various contenders for the honor of being the Biggest Ball of Twine. Whatever giant thing you choose, I hope this chance to versify in praise of the huge gets your poetic engines humming.
April 11th Poem
From Tooth To Taint
11 April 2022
30 feet is what it takes
To turn a delicacy to defecation
It would take 5 of me, standing on my shoulders
To equal the height of my stretched out digestive trac
And my drill Seargent said he didn’t know they could stack shit that high
It takes a day and a half
From the moment you eat
To the moment you release a log
And it only travels 30 feet
I can walk that easily in under 10 seconds
When I was younger, I could run a mile and a half in under 12 minutes
But a bit of food takes its sweet time to exit
Something 5 times taller than you is stuffed in your belly
Twisting and turning upon itself
Sucking the energy to push your whole body
And the hole the food goes down is bigger in diameter
Than the hole that expels it
One you would willingly kiss
The other I’d rather you didn’t put your lips on
It amazes me
That this is just one of the many things
Crammed into our bodies
Tighter than sardines in virgin oil
And it’s not even the largest
But I would wager it is one of the most essential
As it feeds off the food that we all need to continue
So, cleanse that colon,
Be kind to your intestines
Prostrate yourself before your prostate
And give yourself a good flushing
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.
- Email: timothy@createartpodcast.com
- YouTube Channel: Create Art Podcast YT Channel
- IG: @createartpodcast
- Twitter: @createartpod
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