Next Friday — that’s right, one week from today — NaPoWriMo 2016 will begin! As usual, we’ll be accepting submissions of websites where participants will be posting work right up through the end of April. We’ll also feature an (optional) daily writing prompt, and feature a different participant every day.

In past years, we’ve also had daily links to journals, new books, or poetry-themed websites. This year, we’ll be working our way across the globe in celebration of poetry in translation. Every day, we’ll feature a poet from a different country who writes in another language, but whose work is available in English.

In the meantime, if you just can’t get enough poetry fun, why not check out the Academy of American Poets’ suggestions for 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month?

Hello, everyone! There’s just two weeks left until NaPoWriMo 2016. We’re still taking submissions of websites where you’ll be posting poems (in fact, we’ll be doing so all the way through April).

In the meantime, here’s a tip for jump-starting your poetic inspiration. Why not try downloading ABRA, a free app that lets you explore, manipulate, and shape a shifting, rainbow-hued text? It’s very meditative, and also a good way to brush up against words that you might have forgotten!

Hello, everyone! In just 21 days, it will be April 1, and NaPoWriMo 2016 will have begun. If you’re trying to get your inspiration engines recharged in the meantime, why not spend some time perusing the Poetry Foundation website? They have a wealth of poems, blog posts, podcasts, and other versical content for your delectation.

If you’re just reaching this site for the first time, welcome! Take a look at our post from March 1 for more information on how to participate in NaPoWriMo 2016, or take a gander at our FAQ. We hope you’ll join us for a month of poems this April!

Hello, everyone! It’s March 1, 2016, and that means that there’s just one month until another NaPoWriMo. If you need a refresher — or are joining us for the first time — this site aims to encourage you to write a poem every day in April. We’ll post an optional prompt every day, in case you need inspiration, along with poetry-related links (this year, we’re focusing on poetry in translation) and we’ll feature a different participant every day.

How do you participate? It’s easy! Just write a poem every day during the month of April. If you’d like to post your poems on a website — your blog, tumblr, facebook page, etc., you can go ahead and submit the URL to us (using the “Submit Your Site” tab above) and we’ll include it in our compendium of websites where interested people can look at each other’s work.

You can also follow along on Twitter @napowrimo2016, or like our Facebook page.

Questions? Concerns? Check out our FAQ, or drop us a line at napowrimonet-AT-gmail-DOT-com.

It’s official — NaPoWriMo 2015 has come and gone. I hope the project helped you jump-start your writing, as well as giving you some resources and ideas to take forward into the rest of the year.

Thanks to everyone who signed up, everyone who commented, sent encouraging notes, and gave their time to writing as part of NaPoWriMo. This project wouldn’t exist without you!

This year’s list of participants will stay up through early next year, when I’ll clean the slate to prepare for NaPoWriMo 2016! All of the posts and comments will remain available (as the posts and comments for the last few years are).

See you next year!

Well, we all knew this was coming. It’s the last day of NaPoWriMo 2015! Congratulations to everyone who made it through the month. And if you didn’t quite get to 30 poems, don’t worry – there’s always next year!

Our final featured participant is Moonbows and Sundogs, where the review poem for Day 29 seems to place us somewhere beyond mere opinions.

And today’s poetry resource is Coldfront, an online journal of poetry, reviews, essays, and more. You might be interested, for example, in their Poets Off Poetry feature, where poets write about their favorite albums.

And now for our final prompt (still optional!). For the last day of NaPoWriMo, I’d like you to try an odd little exercise that I have had good results with. Today, I challenge you to write a poem backwards. Start with the last line and work your way up the page to the beginning. Another way to go about this might be to take a poem you’ve already written, and flip the order of the lines and from there, edit it so the poem now works with its new order. This will probably feel a bit strange (and really, it is a bit strange), but it just may help you see the formal “opening” and “closing” strategies of your poems in a new way!

Happy writing!

It’s the penultimate day of NaPoWriMo! (I’ve always liked the word penultimate).

Our featured participant today is Bonespark, where the bridge from Day 28’s poem is just a piece of string.

Today’s poetry resource is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Held annually since 2002, this year PiYP Day is April 30. (I thought I would feature the project today to give you time to find poems for your pockets).

And now, for our prompt (optional, as always): today, I challenge you to write a poem in the form of a review. You can review either animate or inanimate things, real places or imaginary places. You can write in the style of an online review (think Yelp) or something more formal that you might find in a newspaper or magazine. (I imagine that bad reviews of past boyfriends/girlfriends might be an easy way to get into this prompt, though really, you can “review” anything in your poem, from summer reading lists for third graders to the idea of the fourth dimension).

Happy writing!

It’s the final Tuesday of NaPoWriMo, and we have just three days left in the month. I hope you’ve gotten your poetical “second wind.”

And we have two featured participants today, because I just couldn’t pick! First, Yoga Mom’s hay(na)ku lament for unseasonable weather, and then Summer Blues, where there are two poems, a single noir-ish hay(na)ku, and then a three-stanza variant, which I found very evocative.

Today’s poetry resource is Lemonhound, where you’ll find poems, reviews, poetics and craft essays, and more.

And now for today’s prompt (optional, as always). Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about bridges. A bridge is a powerful metaphor, and when you start looking for bridges in poems, you find them everywhere. Your poem could be about a real bridge or an imaginary or ideal bridge. It could be one you cross every day, or one that simply seems to stand for something larger – for the idea of connection or distance, for the idea of movement and travel and new horizons.

Happy writing!

Just four days left now – we’re almost to the finish line.

Our featured participant today is EmmaJewel, where the persona poem for Day 26 is also a calligramme!

Today, our featured resource is the Academy of American Poets’ postcard archive, where you’ll find advice to young poets and some oddball summer ephemera, all written in postcard form.

And today’s prompt – optional, as always — comes to us from Vince Gotera. It’s the hay(na)ku). Created by the poet Eileen Tabios and named by Vince, the hay(na)ku is a variant on the haiku. A hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words. You can write just one, or chain several together into a longer poem. For example, you could write a hay(na)ku sonnet, like the one that Vince himself wrote back during NaPoWriMo 2012!

Happy writing!

Happy Sunday, everyone!

Our featured participant today is Linda Kruschke’s Blog, where the clerihew for Day 25 rather cleverly forces you to complete the final rhyme.

Today’s featured poetry resource is The Volta, where you’ll find new poems, video poems, interviews, craft and critical essays, reviews, and more!

I also wanted to give a shout-out today to a project created by Gloria D. Gonsalves, who has been participating in NaPoWriMo for many years. It’s World Children’s Poetry Day, taking place this year on October 3. Keep your eye on the website as autumn rolls around! Perhaps you might consider organizing an event in your community?

And now, for our prompt (optional, as always). Our last two prompts have been squarely in the silly zone – this one should give some scope to both the serious-minded and the silly among you. Today, I challenge you to write a persona poem – a poem in the voice of someone else. Your persona could be a mythological or fictional character, a historical figure, or even an inanimate object. Need some examples? Check out this persona-poem-themed issue of Poemeleon from a few years back.

Happy writing!