Under Pressure...or Not

Getting ready for National Poetry Month

Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

It’s nearly April, and that means a plethora of posts and articles and websites and calendars and lists, all designed to encourage a person to write a poem every day. I have completed 30/30s in the past, usually not with much of anything that ended up being worthy of revision. It was good practice, like writing yoga—keeping the skills limber, the internal dictionary primed. But it wasn’t my writing style. Not my “process,” if you want me to sound pretentious and arty.

More often than not, doing a 30/30 feels like a chore to me, like one more thing I will fail at doing well. Add it to the list of little things I beat myself up over—my exercise routine, my diet, my inability to get the painting right, my forgetfulness, my imperfect housekeeping—despite the fact that none of these things are real issues for me. I workout every day and eat mostly healthy food. No one will see the painting if I don’t want them to. The errand I forgot to run can be done tomorrow. The house is clean, if a bit messy at times. And yes, the poems I might write in a 30/30 stretch may not be terrible, but they would be forced. And when I force things? They usually don’t turn out well.

I have been writing quite a bit this month, spurred by some inspiration at AWP, lots of reading, and some ideas that have been sitting in a document titled Things to Explore at Some Point. (So original, I know.) I’d like to keep that momentum going, but much of what I’m writing has not been poetry. So instead of writing a poem a day in April, I’m going to ask myself to try and write something each day. No labels. No forms. No limits. It could be a sentence. A paragraph. A new line for an old poem. A piece of flash. To just write a THING.

Just putting that down in print feels right, like a weight off my shoulders. Like I can celebrate poems by reading them, and MAYBE, just maybe, writing one if I am inspired to do so. But it also feels correct that I should at least attempt writing everyday—this will be a success of its own.

If you complete a 30/30 with some good poems as a result, I am in awe of you. If you complete a 30/30 at all, I am in awe of you. If you, like me, are simply trying your best to connect with the page as often as possible, I am in awe of you. You created something where there was nothing.

PROMPTS (If You Want):

If you are looking for poetry prompts, I highly recommend Carolee Bennett’s website/blog Good Universe Next Door, which not only has its own prompt section, but also has an incredible library of resources (list poems, odes, prose poems, etc.) that could serve as reading inspiration. Moist Poetry Journal will be offering prompts throughout the month of April and has a prompt tag to click on their site (linked above) for previous prompts.