Poetry Prompt April 11, 2023

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 National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada. This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, 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 Espresso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. 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 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021. What I am doing differently for Poetry Month For 2023 I am not going to be just writing poems in April, I will be writing poems all year round. Also, since I will be writing all year round, I am using a different source for my prompts. There is a blog called Think Written and you can find it here. I will also be performing these works at Katora Coffee House here in Fredericksburg Virginia on their Friday Night Snaps Open Mic Poetry reading. Some of the podcast episodes you will hear will be a live recording of me reading the poem to a live audience, other times I will be reading it in the comfort of my home studio. I do plan on posting my work to the NaPoWriMo site and interacting with the poets there and see if they want to read their work on this podcast. Todays Poetry Prompt Weirder Than Fiction: Think of the most unbelievable moment in your life and write a poem about the experience.  Todays Poem Greyhound Pimpin  5 April 2023  The cheapest way to see the country  With people, you probably will never meet again  I was on the East Coast heading out west  To the city of Sun Phoenix to visit a friend  After pushing off the homeless guys  Begging for smoke or spare change at the depot  I got into the bus where all the seats are coach  Towards the back, near the bathrooms  The slight smell of antiseptic and piss soaked into the cloth seats  We pulled out of there  Just to stop again, and again, and again  Gaining more and more people   Dropping off others  The miles crawled by  We got to Atlanta that night  Time to switch busses  Time to find my bags  And tote them over to our new driver  The same bums begging for change followed us  Like there was an ATM on board  And naturally, we were all well off  Seeing the country the cheapest way possible  There was a couple already occupying the back seats  And I sat in front of them  The smell had changed from cleaner and piss  To sweet sweet rotgut  With a hint of patolli  So, I gave them my spare pack of smokes  And at each stop, we stood off from the others   And huffed our way to bliss  The driver came to the back more than once  Complaining about the smell and noise  I could play straight easily  But they were true amateurs  By the time we got to El Paso  The cops were waiting for them  As we left the bus for another round  They were taken in  And I puffed on a smoke a stones throw away  They waved goodbye  And I said till we meet again  I got back on that bus  And changed seats  Trying to outsmart the driver  When we were stopped at the border security station  I thought they were coming for me  They pulled off a few who looked darker  Than those in the land of the free  They didn’t wave at me  And I didn’t say goodbye  They were lost in that New Mexico sky  We pulled into Phoenix  The heat was still on high   The city didn’t care if it was the middle of Fall or Summer  It was hot all the time  And there was my friend waiting in his Mercedes  The bums from Richmond and Atlanta followed us  And started to beg again  When they tried to wash his windows  He pulled out his gun  They scurried off like mice  And we headed to the nearest strip club  Sign Up for the Create Art Podcast Newsletter   Reaching Out To The Podcast To reach out to me, email [email protected] I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. 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