Source:
https://www.podbean.com/eau/pb-h6m7t-13ee7d6
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
I’d like to challenge you to write a poem in the form of a review. But not a review of a book or a movie of a restaurant. Instead, I challenge you to write a poetic review of something that isn’t normally reviewed. For example, your mother-in-law, the moon, or the year you were ten years old.
2 Stars
24 April 2023
Not a big fan of 2020
I rated that year at zero stars
If I could have, I would have gone into the negative numbers
but your system doesn’t allow for that
Someone is upper management needs to know what happened
I usually like to give years the benefit of the doubt
And think about them from a different perspective
But 2020 was worse than 2016
And that is saying something
So I decided that maybe I was being a bit harsh
And I gave 2020 1 star in 2021
There were a lot of lessons learned in that year
Things seemed to be getting better
I could find toilet paper everywhere I went
I am talking 2 ply
And the ads for bidets didn’t interest me anymore
Kids were back in school
The talk of mass extinction was quashed
And except for that one day in January
Things were okay, not normal but okay
In 2022 I kept my 1-star rating of 2020
Because it seems we still haven’t learned the lessons
We needed to learn to prevent another 2020 from happening
And we were 2 years out
I mean come on folks
I know some of our family trees don’t fork
But at least lets really look at what happened
And not do the same shit all over again
At some points it looked like we were going to go back
And then I would have had to go back down to zero stars
So here we are in 2023
I have to say I am not recommending 2020 under any circumstances
However, I am raising my rating to 2 stars
We got through it, and we are here right now
A bit smarter
A bit larger
And all in the comfort of our homes
If we are lucky enough to be able to have a stay-at-home job
We praised the essential workers
Until the next headline came by
We praised some of our elected officials
Until they were found making backdoor deals as usual
Some of us have even found our true calling
And left the world of bosses behind
I don’t plan on shopping here for future years
Nor can I recommend shopping here for the future
Look what we are leaving the young with
The four horsemen on red bull and bottom shelf vodka
I won’t be here for the hangover that’s coming
Sign Up for the Create Art Podcast Newsletter
