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 National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.
This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, 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 Espresso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. 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 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.
What I am doing differently for Poetry Month
For 2023 I am not going to be just writing poems in April, I will be writing poems all year round. Also, since I will be writing all year round, I am using a different source for my prompts. There is a blog called Think Written and you can find it here. I will also be performing these works at Katora Coffee House here in Fredericksburg Virginia on their Friday Night Snaps Open Mic Poetry reading. Some of the podcast episodes you will hear will be a live recording of me reading the poem to a live audience, other times I will be reading it in the comfort of my home studio. I do plan on posting my work to the NaPoWriMo site and interacting with the poets there and see if they want to read their work on this podcast.
Todays Poetry Prompt
Weirder Than Fiction: Think of the most unbelievable moment in your life and write a poem about the experience.
Todays Poem
Greyhound Pimpin
5 April 2023
The cheapest way to see the country
With people, you probably will never meet again
I was on the East Coast heading out west
To the city of Sun Phoenix to visit a friend
After pushing off the homeless guys
Begging for smoke or spare change at the depot
I got into the bus where all the seats are coach
Towards the back, near the bathrooms
The slight smell of antiseptic and piss soaked into the cloth seats
We pulled out of there
Just to stop again, and again, and again
Gaining more and more people
Dropping off others
The miles crawled by
We got to Atlanta that night
Time to switch busses
Time to find my bags
And tote them over to our new driver
The same bums begging for change followed us
Like there was an ATM on board
And naturally, we were all well off
Seeing the country the cheapest way possible
There was a couple already occupying the back seats
And I sat in front of them
The smell had changed from cleaner and piss
To sweet sweet rotgut
With a hint of patolli
So, I gave them my spare pack of smokes
And at each stop, we stood off from the others
And huffed our way to bliss
The driver came to the back more than once
Complaining about the smell and noise
I could play straight easily
But they were true amateurs
By the time we got to El Paso
The cops were waiting for them
As we left the bus for another round
They were taken in
And I puffed on a smoke a stones throw away
They waved goodbye
And I said till we meet again
I got back on that bus
And changed seats
Trying to outsmart the driver
When we were stopped at the border security station
I thought they were coming for me
They pulled off a few who looked darker
Than those in the land of the free
They didn’t wave at me
And I didn’t say goodbye
They were lost in that New Mexico sky
We pulled into Phoenix
The heat was still on high
The city didn’t care if it was the middle of Fall or Summer
It was hot all the time
And there was my friend waiting in his Mercedes
The bums from Richmond and Atlanta followed us
And started to beg again
When they tried to wash his windows
He pulled out his gun
They scurried off like mice
And we headed to the nearest strip club
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