National Poetry Writing Month 2022 April 30th 2022

History of National Poetry Writing Month National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada. NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April. This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project. My History with National Poetry Writing Month I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021. April 30th Poetry Prompt And now – our final (but still optional!) prompt. Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a cento. This is a poem that is made up of lines taken from other poems. If you’d like to dig into an in-depth example, here’s John Ashbery’s cento “The Dong with the Luminous Nose,” and here it is again, fully annotated to show where every line originated. A cento might seem like a complex undertaking – and one that requires you to have umpteen poetry books at your fingertips for reference – but you don’t have to write a long one. And a good way to jump-start the process is to find an online curation of poems about a particular topic (or in a particular style), and then mine the poems for good lines to string together. You might look at the Poetry Foundation’s collection of love poems, or its collection of poems by British romantic poets, or even its surprisingly expansive collection of poems about (American) football. April 30th Poem Not My Words  30 April 2022  1  Everybody knows that the boat is leaking  Everybody knows that the captain lied  Everybody got this broken feeling  Like their father or their dog just died  Everybody talking to their pockets  Everybody wants a box of chocolates  And a long stem rose  2  Those who have crossed      With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom      Remember us-if at all-not as lost      Violent souls, but only      As the hollow men      The stuffed men.  3  Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight  Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,    2  Eyes I dare not meet in dreams      In death's dream kingdom      These do not appear:      There, the eyes are      Sunlight on a broken column      There, is a tree swinging      And voices are      In the wind's singing      More distant and more solemn      Than a fading star.  1  And everybody knows that the Plague is coming  Everybody knows that it's moving fast  Everybody knows that the naked man and woman  Are just a shining artifact of the past  2  Is it like this      In death's other kingdom      Waking alone      At the hour when we are      Trembling with tenderness      Lips that would kiss      Form prayers to broken stone.  3  though wise men at their end know dark is right,  Because their words had forked no lightning  2  In this last of meeting places      We grope together      And avoid speech      Gathered on this beach of the tumid river           Sightless, unless      The eyes reappear      As the perpetual star      Multifoliate rose  1  And everybody knows that it's now or never  Everybody knows that it's me or you  And everybody knows that you live forever  Ah, when you've done a line or two  3  Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,  And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,  2  Between the desire      And the spasm      Between the potency      And the existence      Between the essence      And the descent      Falls the Shadow  1  And everybody knows that you're in trouble  Everybody knows what you've been through  From the bloody cross on top of Calvary  To the beach of Malibu  3  And you, my father, there on the sad height,  Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.  2  In death's other kingdom      Waking alone      At the hour when we are      Trembling with tenderness      Lips that would kiss      Form prayers to broken stone.    1  Everybody knows the war is over  Everybody knows the good guys lost  Everybody knows the fight was fixed  The poor stay poor, the rich get rich  That's how it goes  3  Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.  2  This is the way the world ends      This is the way the world ends      This is the way the world ends      Not with a bang but a whimper.  Everybody Knows Leonard Cohen  The Hollow Men T.S. Elliot  Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night Dylan Thomas  Reaching Out To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation. Email: [email protected] YouTube Channel: Create Art Podcast YT Channel IG: @createartpodcast Twitter: @createartpod This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy