Poets, Start Your Engines

April 1 is finally here, and with it comes Na/GloPoWriMo. Huzzah!

Our first featured participant is Flipped Serendipity, where the “fun fact” early-bird poem draws attention to something many of us experience when starting a challenge like NaPoWriMo — even if you feel very enthusiastic about the project, it can be hard to push yourself out of your rut and really get writing. But the first step to shaking the rust off your verse is to get something down on the page. And having done these thirty-day-challenges many times, I can say that it does get easier as you go.

Speaking of featured participants, one of the ways we find them is through the comments on each day’s post. Don’t know where to find those? Just click on the title to the day’s post, and it will take you to a new page featuring just that post, and a comment section. Many folks paste links to their daily efforts there, or if they don’t have websites, copy out the poems themselves. The conversation between participants in the comment section is really supportive, and we’re particularly grateful for our “super-commenters,” including Paula, Gloria, Elizabeth, and Romana, who make the effort to engage with other writers, and to cheerlead their work. We couldn’t do this without yu!

Our poetry resource for the day is What Sparks Poetry, a regular feature of Poetry Daily. In each article in the series, a different poet discusses the craft of writing, and provides a prompt.

And here’s our own prompt (optional, as always) for the first day of Na/GloPoWriMo. They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but they never said you can’t try to write a poem based on a book cover — and that’s your challenge for today! Take a look through Public Domain Review’s article on “The Art of Book Covers.” Some of the featured covers are beautiful. Some are distressing. Some are just plain weird (I’m looking at you, “Mr Sweet Potatoes”). With any luck, one or more of these will catch your fancy, and open your mind to some poetic insights.

Happy writing!