Hello, poetry fans! We’re just three days out from April 1, and the beginning of National/Global Poetry Writing Month. We assume you’ve been spending March deep within your poetry caverns, meditating on metaphors, and clearing your minds of attachments to non-metrical things. (Actually, we don’t assume that at all – we’re just glad you’re here!)

As we wait out the maddeningly long month of March, why not check out these images of “spine poems”? As the phrase implies, these are poems made up out of stacked book titles, visible in the books’ spines. If you’re feeling creative, you could get a jump-start on your poetic output by trying to put together a spine poem of your own.

We’ll be back tomorrow with another resource, and then on March 31 with an early-bird prompt.

Hello, everyone! April 1 is just 15 days away, and that means Na/GloPoWriMo 2024 is nearly upon us. I hope you’re excited for this year’s challenge, and that you’re sharpening your poetry pencils (or, er, your keyboards) in anticipation.

We’ll be back in the three days leading up to April 1, but in the meantime, to help get you in the mood to write, here’s a giant list of poetry podcasts. It may sound a bit strange, but I find inspiration often strikes while I’m listening to poetry. And it helps, too, that with podcasts, I can listen while doing the dishes, folding the laundry, or just looking off into the distance as if I were posing for a particularly moody rock album cover. Something about engaging multiple senses –listening, movement– really helps me come up with new ideas (which is also why I always have a pen and a tiny notebook to hand).

UPDATED: to fix the link, which was going to the wrong place. Whoops!

Hello, everyone!

It’s getting to be that time of year again! National/Global Poetry Writing Month is just 30 days away! If you’re not familiar with the project, during Na/GloPoWriMo (known to the uninitiated as “April”) poets of all stripes and levels of experience commit to writing a poem a day.

There’s no secret handshakes or application forms. All you have to do is write a poem every day from April 1 to April 30. If you’ll be posting your efforts to a blog or other internet space this year, you can submit the link using our “Submit Your Site” form, and your website will show up in our “Participants’ Sites” list.

And if you’re not planning to post your work online? No worries! Na/GloPoWriMo doesn’t require that at all. All you have to day is write a poem a day for April. And if you get started late or skip a day — well, that’s fine, too. The idea behind Na/GloPoWriMo is to encourage you to get your pen (or keyboard) in hand — not to beat yourself up.

As always, we’ll be posting an optional daily prompt to help you get inspired. We’ll also be featuring a different participant each day, as well as a daily poetry-related resource.

For those of you that would like buttons/badges to post on your blogs or websites to show your participation, here is this year’s crop!:

And a hint for those of you who would like to communicate with fellow Na/GloPoWriMo-ers — the title of each day’s post is a link that will take you to a comment section for hte 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 start really counting down to April 1! If you have questions in the meantime, please contact us at napowrimonet AT gmail DOT com.

We made it, everyone! Na/GloPoWriMo has come and gone – for the twentieth time! I hope you had fun.

My gratitude goes out to you for joining us, and my special thanks to everyone who has commented on other participants’ work. Your kindness, care, and enthusiasm mean the world.

Our final daily participant is A Rhyme a Day, where the palinode prompt for Day 30 resulted in a lovely and bittersweet rumination on trains.

We’ll be back next year with more prompts and resources. Until then, happy writing!  

Well, we knew it would come to this, what with the inexorable march of time and all. Today is the final day of Na/GloPoWriMo. Thank you all for joining the challenge during this, its twentieth year! We’ll be back tomorrow with our final featured participant and some housekeeping information, as we prepare to go back into our long sleep (like Robert Frost’s woodchuck) until next spring.

But for now, here’s our daily featured participant is Farah Lawal Harris, who responded to Day 29’s food-based prompt with a paean to Nigerian cooking.

Our final daily resource is a pair of podcasts: Wacky Poem Life, sponsored by the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry (yes, there is a Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry!), and Haiku Chronicles, a podcast focused on haiku and related poetic forms.

And now for our last prompt of the year (still optional!) Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a palinode – a poem in which you retract a view or sentiment expressed in an earlier poem. For example, you might pick a poem you drafted earlier in the month and write a poem that contradicts or troubles it. This could be an interesting way to start working on a series of related poems. Alternatively, you could play around with the idea of a palinode by writing a poem in which the speaker says something like “I take it back” or otherwise abandons a prior position within the single poem.

Happy writing!

Hello, everyone, and happy End-of-Na/GloPoWriMo Eve.

Our featured daily participant is A Writer Without Words, where the “index” poem for Day 28 doesn’t just give us index entries for something delicious, but does so in abecedarian fashion.

Today’s featured resource is Brevity Magazine’s archive of craft essays.

And here’s our daily (optional) prompt. Start by reading Alberto Rios’s poem “Perfect for Any Occasion.” Now, write your own two-part poem that focuses on a food or type of meal. At some point in the poem, describe the food or meal as if it were a specific kind of person. Give the food/meal at least one line of spoken dialogue.

Happy writing!

Just three days left in Na/GloPoWriMo 2023!

Today’s featured participant is Jacquelyn Markham, who brings us a bouquet of yellow celosias in response to Day 27’s “Blank of Blank” prompt.

And for today’s resource, we have another book and two chapbooks published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring poems written during the challenge. For our book, we have Bruce Niedt‘s collection, In the Bungalow of Colorful Aging. And for our chapbooks, here’s Lorraine Whelan’s Home Sweet Home Goodbye and Nina Lewis’s Fragile Houses.

Last but not least, here’s our daily prompt, optional and once more taken from our archives. Have you ever flipped to the index of a book and found it super interesting? Well, I have (yes, I live an exciting life!) For example, the other day I pulled from my shelf a copy of on old book that excerpts parts of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journals. I took a look at the index, and found the following entry under “Man”:

fails to attain perfection, 46; can take advantage of any quality within him, 46; his plot of ground, 46; his use, 52, 56; not to be trusted with too much power, 55; should not be too conscientious, 58; occult relationship between animals and, 75; God in, 79, 86; not looked upon as an animal, 80; gains courage by going much alone, 81; the finished, 89; and woman, distinctive marks of, 109; reliance in the moral constitution of, 124; the infinitude of the private, 151; and men, 217; should compare advantageously with a river, 258.

That’s a poem, right there!

Today, I challenge you to write your own index poem. You could start with found language from an actual index, or you could invent an index, somewhat in the style of this poem by Kell Connor. Happy writing!

Happy writing!

(updated to fix the broken link to our featured participant’s poem)

Happy Thursday, everyone, and happy twenty-seventh day of Na/GloPoWriMo.

Today, our featured participant is Veruugal, who brings us a moving elegy in response to Day 26’s “what’s in a name?” prompt. For a little more context, see the comment here.

As today’s featured resource, we have another duo of books written by Na/GloPoWriMoers, and featuring work first drafted during Na/GloPoWriMo. First, here’s Victoria Doerper’s What if We All Bloomed?: Poems of Nature, Love, and Aging, and next, Mirjana M’s Colour Me in Cayenne & Chlorine.

And now for our daily prompt (optional, as always). Today, begin by reading Bernadette Mayer’s poem “The Lobelias of Fear.” Now write your own poem titled “The ________ of ________,” where the first blank is a very particular kind of plant or animal, and the second blank is an abstract noun. The poem should contain at least one simile that plays on double meanings or otherwise doesn’t quite make “sense,” and describe things or beings from very different times or places as co-existing in the same space.

Happy writing!

Welcome back for Day Twenty-Six of Na/GloPoWriMo, everybody.

Our featured participant for the day is Joe Hesch, where the love poem for Day 25 is full of dreamy, surreal similes.

And now, here’s a new pair of books published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring poems written during the yearly challenge. First up, we have longtime participant Gloria D. Gonsalves’ book Let’s Go Walking in the Storm, and next, Dawn Anderson’s book World Stamp-Poems. Both Gloria and Dawn actually have several poetry collections featuring work first written during Na/GloPoWriMo. Check out their websites to see more!

Our (optional) prompt for day asks you to write a portrait poem that focuses on or plays with the meaning of the subject’s name. This could be a self-portrait, a portrait of a family member or close friend, or even a portrait of a famous or historical person. If you need help delving into the meaning of your poem-subject’s name, this website may help.

Happy writing!

Happy 25^th day of Na/GloPoWriMo, all!

Today’s featured participant is Anna Enbom, who reminds us, in response to Day 24’s “review” prompt, that art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

As we close out our twentieth year, the featured resources for the next few days will take the form of books and chapbooks published by Na/GloPoWriMoers, featuring work first drafted as part of the Na/GloPoWriMo challenge. First, up, we have Vince Gotera’s book The Coolest Month and Elizabeth Boquet’s collection of new and selected poems, Galoshes.

Last but not least, here’s our (optional) prompt for the day. Begin by reading e e cummings’ poem [somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond]. This is a pretty classic love poem, so well-known that it has spawned at least one silly meme. Today’s prompt challenges you to also write a love poem, one that names at least one flower, contains one parenthetical statement, and in which at least some lines break in unusual places.

Happy writing!

(Updated to fix the link to the cummings’ poem!)