Well, here we are – nearly to the end of the long month of March, and the start of both April and our yearly challenge. April’s rather infamously been called “the cruelest month,” but we hope you’ll find it otherwise – full of creative energy and learning.

Tomorrow we’ll provide our early-bird prompt and after that, it’s off to the Na/GloPoWriMo races! Each day we will feature a participant, give you a little resource, and an optional prompt. This year, our prompts will all center around the loose theme of ekphrastic work – that is, poems that engage with other art forms in some way. Following this theme, our daily resources will link you to online museum collections and exhibits, which you can perfuse for your own delectation and also potentially mine for poetic subjects.

See you tomorrow!

Hello, everyone. There’s just three days to go until April 1, and the official beginning of National/Global Poetry Writing Month. We expect you have all been spending March deep in the woods, in your personal poetic meditation huts, readying yourselves physically and mentally for the demands of writing a poem a day.

Well, no! But we do trust that you are feeling hopeful and excited about the challenge. We’ll be back tomorrow with some another little pep-talk, and on March 31, we will present our early-bird prompt – suitable for those who just can’t wait to get started, and those for whom April comes a little earlier (given the vicissitudes of the international date line) than it does to Na/GloPoWriMo’s east-coast-US headquarters.

Well, well — it’s the Ides of March, and that means that we’ve got just two weeks and some change until April 1, and the start of National/Global Poetry Writing Month.

This year, our (optional) prompts will be focused on encouraging you to write poems that engage with art and music. We’ll be back in the three days leading up to the beginning of our yearly challenge, but in the meantime — and with the art world in mind — why not check out Bloomberg Connects? It’s an app that lets you virtually visit museums all over the world!

Hello, fellow versifiers! It’s March 1, and that means we’re just a month away from another National/Global Poetry Writing Month.

We here at Na/GloPoWriMo headquarters are hyping ourselves up for this year’s challenge. As usual, every day we’ll be featuring a participant , giving you a link to some kind of poetic inspiration, and providing a totally optional prompt.

If you’re new to Na/GloPoWriMo, the idea is simple. Just write a poem a day for the month of April. There are no prizes (other than the sublime glory of writing thirty poems), but there is a whole lot of fun. And participation couldn’t be easier. Just write a poem a day. You can write using our prompts — or not. You can write in English — or not. You can post your poems on your blog or website for everyone to see — or not. But if you do plan to post them and you’d like us to link to your website, you can use the “Submit Your Site” button above to be taken to a wee form that will let you input your site information. And if you want a little button/badge to put on your website, here are some for this year:

So, you may be thinking, all this sounds fine, but what happens if I miss a day? Simple. YOU GO TO POETRY JAIL. No, we’re kidding. There is no poetry jail. Just catch up — or not. Just as there are no prizes, there are no punishments in the world of Na/GloPoWriMo.

And if you’re interested in communicating with fellow Na/GloPoWriMo-ers, it’s as easy as clicking on the title of each day’s post. Doing so will take you to a page with a comment section for that post. This is a great place to paste links to your daily output during Na/GloPoWriMo, and to find other participants’ poems.

We’ll be back on the 15th of March, as we get closer to April 1! If you have questions in the meantime, please contact us at napowrimonet AT gmail DOT com.

Well, we suppose it was inevitable, but yet another Na/GloPoWriMo has come and gone.

We’re grateful to all who participated, but a special shout-out to all of you who cheered each other on in the comments on each day’s posts and in our Facebook group, helped each other out with questions, and acted as guides, helpers, and resources during the month. A truly special community forms each year around this project, and we are moved every year not only by seeing familiar faces return, but by seeing how those familiar faces’ generosity encourages new participants to become familiar faces in turn.

Our final featured participant for the year is barbaraturneyweilandpoetess, where you’ll find Medusa consulting with her attorney (Mr. Ovid) in response to Day 30’s mythical prompt.

As usual, all of this year’s posts and comments will remain up and available for your perusal now and into perpetuity. We’ll also leave this year’s list of participants’ site up until we begin our housecleaning early next year in anticipation of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo 2025.

Thanks again for your creativity, your care, and your insight. We’re truly blessed to spend each April in a welter and whirlwind of verse. We hope to see you next April . . .

And in the meantime, happy writing!

All good things, even Na/GloPoWriMo, must come to an end. But we’ll be back again next year (and also tomorrow, with our final featured participant!)

Today’s featured participant is 7eyedwonder, where you’ll find a feisty, albatross-themed poem in response to Day 28’s Taylor Swift-themed prompt.

Our final daily resource is this repository of podcasts hosted by the Scottish Poetry Library.

And now for our last prompt of the year – optional, as always! Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem in which the speaker is identified with, or compared to, a character from myth or legend, as in  Claire Scott’s poem “Scheherazade at the Doctor’s Office.”

Happy writing!

Happy twenty-ninth day of NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo, everyone.

We have two featured participants today: Frank Bekker, who brings us a sweet sijo about a cat, and Brittany Mishra, whose poem in response to Day 28’s sijo prompt explores the concept of value.

Today’s daily resource is Poems for These Hours, an Instagram account that shares new poems regularly.

And now for our optional prompt. If you’ve been paying attention to pop-music news over the past couple of weeks, you may know that Taylor Swift has released a new double album titled “The Tortured Poets Department.” In recognition of this occasion, Merriam-Webster put together a list of ten words from Taylor Swift songs. We hope you don’t find this too torturous yourself, but we’d like to challenge you to select one these words, and write a poem that uses the word as its title.

Happy writing!

We’re in the home stretch now, with just three days left to go in this year’s Na/GloPoWriMo!

Today’s featured participant is MellowYellow, which brings us a driving, musical poem in response to Day 27’s American sonnet prompt.

Our featured resource for the day is Harriet Books, the Poetry Foundation’s online website devoted to poetry book reviews, poetry news, and poetry-themed blog poets.

Finally, our optional prompt for the day asks you to try your hand at writing a sijo. This is a traditional Korean verse form. A sijo has three lines of 14-16 syllables. The first line introduces the poem’s theme, the second discusses it, and the third line, which is divided into two sentences or clauses, ends the poem – usually with some kind of twist or surprise.

You could also write a sijo in six lines – at least when it comes to translating classical sijo into English, translators seem to have developed this habit, as you can see from these translations of poems by Jong Mong-Ju and U Tak.

Happy writing!

A very happy twenty-seventh day of Na/GloPoWriMo to you all.

Today, our featured daily participant is Peregrine Buffington, where you’ll not only find a lot of alliteration, consonance, and assonance in response to Day 26’s prompt, but you’ll find it in abecedarian form.

Our featured resource for the day is Poetry Pause, the “daily dispatch” of the League of Canadian Poets.

And now for our prompt – optional, as always!  Today we’d like to challenge you to write an “American sonnet.” What’s that? Well, it’s like a regular sonnet but . . . fewer rules? Like a traditional Spencerian or Shakespearean sonnet, an American sonnet is shortish (generally 14 lines, but not necessarily!), discursive, and tends to end with a bang, but there’s no need to have a rhyme scheme or even a specific meter. Here are a few examples:

• Wanda Coleman’s American Sonnet (10)
• Terence Hayes’s American Sonnet for the New Year
• Ted Berrigan’s Sonnet LXXXVIII

If you’d like more specific instructions for how to get started, Write 253 has a great “formula” prompt for an American sonnet, which you can find here.

Happy writing!

Happy final Friday of Na/GloPoWriMo, everyone!

Our featured participant for the day is Words With Ruth, where we get a dating profile in response to Day 25’s Proust Questionnaire prompt.

Our daily resource is the video archive of the Silo City Reading Series, hosted by the Just Buffalo Literary Center in Buffalo, New York.

And now for our (optional) prompt. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that involves alliteration, consonance, and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of a particular consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds elsewhere in multiple words, and assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Traci Brimhall’s poem “A Group of Moths” provides a great example of these poetic devices at work, with each line playing with different sounds that seem to move the poem along on a sonorous wave.

Your poem doesn’t have to be as complex as all that, though. Just pick a consonant or two and a vowel and dive right into the wonderful world (hey, there’s some alliteration/consonance/assonance right there) of sound.

Happy writing!