on poetry

“Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity, and that’s, in a way, the hardest thing about writing poetry is waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it’s going to come.”
C.K. Williams
(November 4, 1936 – September 20, 2015)

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the poems of November

November (coming up before you know it) is National Novel Writing Month: NaNoWriMo. Each November since 1999, NaNoWriMo has put forth a challenge: write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. More than half a million people participated in 2020.

But not all of them were writing novels. Some were writing poetry.

Fifty thousand words of poetry would be a lot (approximately 1666 a day). (For reference, Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” is about 1400 words.)

But the poet’s goal does not need to be a word count. It could be to write a poem each day (as during National Poetry Month), to complete enough poems for a chapbook, to write a series of poems on a theme, or to explore a different form each day. It could also be a time to rediscover and edit previously written poems.

November is right around the corner. What will you make of it?

For prompts, structure, accountability, and encouragement, sign up at NaNoWriMo (it’s free).

on poetry

“If I’m writing a long book, I stick only to that — unless a poem happens to come along. (I always stop everything for a poem.)”
Diana Hendry
(b. October 2, 1941)

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on poetry

“You must have strong self-discipline. You are working alone. No one is employing you. No one is around to give you the sack if you don’t turn up for work, or to tick you off if you start slacking.”
Roald Dahl
(September 13, 1916 – November 23, 1990)

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on poetry

“The best piece of advice that I was given, you know, and I was given this by my parents over the years, for any writer that is looking to capture their experiences, their imagination and put it down on the page, I would say three things. I’d say, one, read. Read everything you can get your hands on. Don’t just read in the genre that you’re writing in. Read.

“Inform yourself. Enhance your worldview. The second thing I would say, and you’re probably not going to like hearing this, I would say read. I would say read, you know, read something fun. You know, I’d say read something that you’re interested in. Go to the bookstore. Go to the library, you know. Check out a great book, you know. You may not like the first book you read, but there’s so many more. And the last piece of advice — I’ve never shared this with anyone. Read. You want to be a better writer? Read.”
Kwame Alexander
(b. August 21, 1968)

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on poetry

“I write out of curiosity — to see what language can do at the ‘limit-cases’ of writing. I believe that poetry constitutes the ‘R & D wing’ of language, reverse-engineering this alien technology for human expression. I build anti-gravity machines out of words.”
Christian Bök
(b. August 10, 1966)

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on poetry

“If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results.”
Emily Brontë
(July 30, 1818 – December 19, 1848)

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on poetry

“Look under the bed for poetry.”
Ruth Krauss
(July 25, 1901 – July 10, 1993)

on poetry

“…get ready a basket first of all, in which to collect all your rejection slips and you must continue until that basket is full or your work is accepted. In other words, you just must continue writing; and once you accept that, then we can talk about what you want to write…”
Wole Soyinka
(b. July 13, 1934)

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Poetry Marathon

Signups are now open for the 2021 Poetry Marathon. The marathon, during which participants write 24 poems in 24 hours OR 12 poems in 12 hours (half-marathon), will begin on Saturday, June 26. Registration, which is free, is open through Saturday, June 19.

You could draft a chapbook of poems in 24 hours. Will this be a Marathon year?