I made it writing a poem daily for National Poetry Month 2010! Whew! I wipe my brow in completing this undertaking. And I salute all the participants for their stick-to-it-iveness. (I did write that out.) You can check them out as many are in my poet blog links.

Writing a poem daily is fun. But, don’t think it’s not a strain. And, writing in public to prompts does not lessen the pressure at all. Still, I’m glad I went the distance.

Now, if you take the time to read my poetry and the prompts, you will see that I came pretty close most of the time. In fact, any deviance from the prompt would be due to misinterpreting the meaning of the prompt. What can I say? It happens. You may also notice that some of the titles leave much to be desired. These are the markings of drafts in the true sense of its meaning.

What’s Next

Now comes the time to review, to edit and revise what I tried to say through my poems this month. I’ll have to see if I can remember how to fit my titles to the poems, like some of the great poetry I read this month. My plan is to revise the poems while keeping them really close to the original poem. It’s the most authentic, and it’s the rules too.

Submitting: If you participated in writing a poem daily and are hoping to be included in the anthology, the submission instructions are up at Read Write Poem. The deadline is May 7, so don’t delay in selecting and preparing your poems according to the guidelines set forth.

And after That

As of today, Read Write Poem is no longer a live site. It’s shut down to new members, to comments, to group activities, to everything except the repository of poems posted there. And what a collection it is, for your reading pleasure! Now’s my chance to go back and read the poems I missed during the month.

I’ve visited several of the community sites that are springing up and being revitalized as a result of the closing of Read Write Poem. They are community sites that offer poem prompts. I find I enjoy using prompts and seeing where they take me. The ones that have my attention so far, are linked in my sidebar by way of their respective banners. They’re worth checking out.

They don’t offer poems daily. For example, Writer’s Island has Saturday prompts with the first one today, already posted.

Time for Review

Posting about poets I enjoy: For my next one, it’s down to two from my bookshelves. Either way, I’ll be reading and exploring someone that I enjoy a great deal. Getting to know the writing of others is big schooling for me.

Poetry books on tap: Frances Mayes’ The Discovery of Poetry and John Drury’s Creating Poetry. I do this because 30 day poem sprints always make me want to go back to school.

What’s on your poetry agenda? What poetry communities have captured your attention? Leave a comment about what’s next for you, or link to your blog post.

I was hoping someone would step up and say it isn’t so. But it didn’t happen. Read Write Poem soon will be nothing more than a fine repository of fine writing and writer links. You see it’s closing after April 30, 2010.

The forum was started on Read Write Poem’s site to discuss the closing, the sentiment, the next steps.

What comes after Read Write Poem closes was anyone’s guess. In this information post at his blog, Bearly Audible, Neil Reid has links that really need to be explored.

And he’s gone much further! Neil has done this awesome thing of opening a new community site, We Write Poems, as an option for Read Write Poem members to join. If you’re familiar with the writers at Read Write Poem, or become familiar by reading the postings there, you’ll be happy to know that several of the talents from RWP are participating in Neil’s new site. That is pretty cool!

So are many others stepping up with ways to continue doing what brings them joy. Among them, Rob Kistner returning to his Writer’s Island for regular weekly prompts. And, he presents links to other prompt sites for our participation.

No Longer Active, Still Vital

This is all quite new to me. Once I decided to post more of my writing and engage poetry more fully, it quickly became clear that it wasn’t something I wanted to do alone. I may have mentioned how thrilled I was to have finally gotten up the nerve to tap into some great poetry communities.

When I went for it, Read Write Poem was one of the first ones I found that I braved. I will always be glad I started there. Having the opportunity to continue with this community of poem writers is just a big ol’ gift I eagerly accept.

I’m keeping the Read Write Poem badge in my sidebar as long as it remains online for exploration. And I’ll add other badges for sites I participate in, first up We Write Poems, coming soon.

Everything related to RWP’s NaPoWriMo event is in place. You can visit this link to read about the plans for the online anthology of some poems from this month’s submissions.

The professional musicians, singers, lyricists, music writers, they all make it look so easy!

Half way, WOOHOO!! I am up to date, not up too late after posting #15 for RWP’s whimsical musical prompt for today. It hurt. But I wrote through the pain.

The pain came from all the preamble that was necessary to get to the writing. I had to choose from all my incomplete, semi- or fully-sucking poems to find one that lent itself to a rhythm.

I had to own my musical challenges when it came to making up a rhythm and sticking with it and writing words to it. It was easy to trash the rest of the poem that I drew from.

Fortunately, I know I need for poetry to drip from my fingers. That’s been since from time and when, and will continue until the last part of me ends. So I have no choice but to embrace it…I checked…my poetry and me are better together.

At any rate, it is done. I’ve made it this far, writing a poem a day. And, I’ve managed to write to the prompt, (or better, to my interpretations of the prompts), each day. But, who knows what tomorrow brings? I can say for certain, it’s a labor of love—and I’m loving it!

I couldn’t bring myself to put a third video in here, no matter how much I loved it. The point is, it’s a love/hate relationship and the love wins out. If it sounds familiar, “who knows what tomorrow brings” is the first line in Joe Cocker’s “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong.”

The way I’m making it through these days, is skittish at best when I read the prompts. Then when I sit to write, something comes over me and I feel like I’m going to do this. And I just go with that flow. I think I’m catching my rhythm, especially since writing poems earlier.

Continuing my Goals to the End

Hopefully I’ll continue to stay on prompt, and read more and more poetry at RWP and other places in cyberspace. I’d also like to remember my idea for a theme I had for this month’s writing. Really, though, I’ll settle for the first too.

Nearing the halfway mark for the month and writing a poems a day, I had to make one big change to my routine. For whatever reason, I was dragging my feet to finish and post poems until the very last minute of the day. That was weighing me down as I tried to wade through the writing and reading that is supposed to be a pleasure.

Posting late mattered because I took it to heart and made it a responsibility to write a poem a day, right. So I had it to do and it was on my mind all day, each day. It popped up throughout the day, whatever I was working on, that I had this obligation yet unfulfilled. It created a measure of pressure and distraction that I decided to eliminate. Today was my first day being really early to post a poem, and it felt really good.

I’m so early today until I hardly know what to do with myself. I’m home early and trying to catch up on reading and other writing. For sure, I’m going to try to go to bed early to see if I can get up even earlier than my usual 7:30, hopefully to read more poems. The poems are really fantastic!

And there’s lots to read. Where I’m posting my notifications, at Read Write Poem, there are more than 200 writers posting their works and comments–daily!

I’m also visiting the places listed in my National Poetry Month section in my sidebar. If you want to read more, and possibly better poems, by all means visit these places and get reading.

One place I have to mention I came across a few days ago, is Poetic Mindset. This blogger introduces a poet a day. It’s an ambitions effort that I am enjoying immensely. You should check it out.

So, how’s it going? Have you changed anything big in your poem a day practices? Have you come across any interesting sites? Or are you doing anything unusual for NaPoWriMo? I’d love to hear about it.

Feeling wordy I sat to blurt it,
just anything that came
singing to me.

I made to type
and it hit hard in my face
there were no sensible words
left in the Guff.

© 2010 Shari Lynne Smothers

Really, it’s not that bad. Rather unexpectedly, I’m in New Orleans until Thursday. My mom decided she wanted to be here for the playoff game against the Vikings. So we’re in our hometown for a few days, before returning home to Houston.

While I’m here, I don’t have regular access to the internet, and I hadn’t really planned to work the whole time anyway. However, while it’s good to spend time offline, I miss it. So I got on for a minute to post a brief note to explain my absence and maybe later I’ll be visiting blogs I regularly enjoy.

Monday morning I’m
three poems in arrears and some
thousands words behind.

©2009 Shari Lynne Smothers

This is a short Haiku to convey my rising anxiety about the projects I’ve taken on.

I can deal with being three poems behind–on  a regular day. But, because I’ve taken on NaNoWriMo and I’m very far behind, my anxiety is reaching  a feverish pitch.

My writing could well be over for NaNoWriMo, except the characters are still alive in my head. I’ve got all these ideas and twists and I let time get away from me. Well, I let family and events get in the way, cardinal November sin.

Ultimately, I’m not out of the game until November 30th. So, with ideas still to record, creativity still flowing, I need to open their creative outlet. I’ll take these last eight days and make the best of it.

NaNoWriMo 2009 Update

Some people say that they don’t write with an outline. I get that. It was great fun letting my characters meet new characters, and watching them evolve. However, I’m learning what I can and cannot do regarding leaving them their own devices.

In short order I’ve managed to get a good bit behind in my writing. However, I have good reason. I needed to go back and do some mapping. It turns out that these characters with lives and personalities still need some guidance. Especially if I’m going to get them to the point of fulfilling my ideas.

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