NaPoWriMo 2013

For the first time I’m taking part in NaPoWriMo, the challenge to write a poem every day for the month of April. Normally I write (and finish) a couple of poems a month, so this is quite unusual for me. Admittedly I’ve had spells when I’ve written several poems in a week, and when I’m on retreat I write a lot.

I’m finding this is actually a very liberating thing, because this past week I haven’t set out to write the finished article. I’ve felt free to experiment with subject and form, knowing that the outcomes would be sketches or outlines, never mind first drafts. And yet I’ve been surprised by the outcomes. Here are the titles of the first seven:

Eruption
Blue planet
Touch and go
Social housing
A soothmoother borrows a scythe
Handy instruction manual
Limone

And Week Two:

[Horses]
haiku
Fimbulwinter
Camargue
[Lammermuir journey]
[Wee Goldie]
Bubble Sort

I’m not posting the poems here, because I might want to send edited versions to magazines  or competitions later, and that would constitute ‘previous publication’.

(I’ve now revised 5 of these into versions I’d call ‘publishable’, and two of them are included in submissions I’m sending out later in the month.)

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