Poetry Month

When a reader enters the pages of a book of poetry, he or she enters a world where dreams transform the past into knowledge made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.
― Aberjhani

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
— Edgar Allan Poe

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
— Carl Sandburg

A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms to be struck by lightning 5 or 6 times.
— Randall Jarrell

As some of you may already know, April is Poetry Month, and once again Writer’s Digest is running their annual PAD Challenge (poem a day). They provide a new poetry prompt every day for your writing pleasure. If you’d like to participate, or just learn more, go HERE

I did the PAD challenge in 2006 and had a lot of fun. This is where I was introduced to the Sestina, which set me on my path of exploration of poetry forms. One of the things I liked best about the challenge is the fact that like NaNo, there’s nothing official. So if you fall behind and have to catch up, nobody really cares.

I’ve found in the past that when I’m in a writing slump writing poetry helps pull me out again. I guess part of this is because my first serious writing was poetry. In junior high, my language arts teacher designated Fridays as “Anthology Day,” where we’d be given a prompt (a picture, a short film, an idea) and would write about it in our anthology, a special notebook designated for that alone.

The thing was, we could write whatever we wanted. It could be fiction, non-fiction, a poem, or a excerpt from someone else’s work. I only once used someone else’s work (a rather gross poem about a fly that I chose for its shock value), and once I wrote a short story. But usually I could be depended on to turn in an original poem. My teacher loved me. ;-)

Some of those poems survive to this day. Even back then I had a strong sense of rhyme and rhythm – I don’t know where I learned that from, but it was pretty much hardwired into me. I also learned to never abandon sense for rhyme, and was introduced to the wonders of the thesaurus.

Even when I began writing more prose (mostly short stories), I still wrote poetry. I wrote my first parody in high school. The assignment was to write three verses in the style of one of the masters whose work had a strong rhythm to it. I chose Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Cremation of Sam McGee and instead of three verses I rewrote the entire thing as The Refrigeration of Sam McGee.

In any case, like I said, when I’m in a writing slump I often turn to poetry to pull myself out again. So I figured I have nothing to lose and I decided to give the PAD challenge a try. I joined up a little late, but I’m only a couple of poems behind.

They’re not great poems, but they’re good enough to warrant their own category in the wordage report. AND I figure I can post a selection (or maybe all of them because they’re really short) on Wednesdays.

Look at me go – new words and a Wednesday post. It can only get better from here, right?

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

Well, would you look at that. Not only did I get my blog pos back, I managed to get some poetry done. It might not be great poetry, but it’s something.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1326+726+816=2,882
Poetry - 72+40+49+55+43+65+47=375
Total words: 3,257 words

Three minute words – 93+112+92+94+114+91+88=684

Goals For Next Week:
More poetry, and maybe something else as well.

EDITING:
I’ve been working on Magickal Mayhem, bit by bit, and making steady progress. Maybe next week I’ll remember to keep track

Goal For Next Week:
Keep editing Magickal Mayhem – and anything else that happens to come my way. Hint, hint, Jamie :-).

MARKETING MONDAY:
*sigh* Nope, didn’t happen last week.

And I still haven’t heard back about anything I’ve submitted so far, not even the Toronto Star Contest. They’re supposed to make their decision by now, but I’m not finding anything on a Google search either.

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECHNO TUESDAY:
For cryin’ out loud. Seriously, I do not know what is up with me as far as the Paperwhite goes. Maybe I could start by charging the damn thing up. And just because I get the books uploaded to it doesn’t mean I have to get it all organized. Who says I have to organize it at all? I can just delete as I finish a book. I’ve got so many books in my cloud I’ll never have the time to re-read any of them. And just because I delete them off the Paperwhite doesn’t mean they’re deleted out of the cloud – unless I really want to permanently delete something. In which case I’ll just cross that bridge when I come to it.

Goal For Next Week:
Set up Paperwhite

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
By the end of the month I’m going to have 30 new poems. Wednesday seems like the perfect day to showcase some of them.

Goal For Next Week:
Catch up on the PAD challenge

CRAFTING:
Yikes! I’m behind in my crafting.

I finally have the design set for the embroidery on the granddaughter’s dress. This entailed tracing the designs onto tracing paper, and then tracing them from the back to create my own transfers. It really shouldn’t have taken this long, but I wanted to be really, really sure so I didn’t screw anything up.

Goal For Next Week:
Embroider the granddaughter’s dress – it’s supposed to be for Easter

WHAT I’M READING:
Thank goodness this slowed down a bit. I finished Key of Valour by Nora Roberts, and then read Stars of Fortune, and Bay of Sighs, and I’m almost finished Island of Glass. The good news is I have a couple of books on tap that are not Nora Roberts.

The bad news is, I ordered the next four books in the Freakin’ series by Eve Langlais, and three other kind of random paperbacks that were on a points sale with Indigo. And they’re supposed to be here by Wednesday.

Goal For Next Week:
Make an effort to keep my reading under control

GOAL REVIEW:
Well . . . some good and some bad, I guess. The new words got a boost from the poetry, so that’s a win. And I’ve been continuing my slow but steady work on Magickal Misfire as far as editing goes.

The marketing was a bust, as was Techno Tuesday. At least Poetry Wednesday is looking promising.

The crafting was a dismal failure, which is really putting me behind the eight ball for this week. And my goal to not order any more Eve Langlais books lasted a whole day. *sigh*

But if there’s an up side to not meeting my goals, it’s that it gives me something to strive for in the week ahead.

Happy writing.