You know the week is going to be bad when Monday feels like Friday. So fuck it, I’m writing a free form entry about this month’s writing goals.
April is National Poetry Month. Determined never to waste another one of these again, I will submit three poems for publication.
It’s so weird that my first ever attempt landed me between the pages of a Simon & Schuster (MTV) production under names like Aja Monet, Dufflyn Lammers, and Saul Fucking Williams. I’ve even walked into the Tattered Cover and Barnes & Noble, picked up a copy of this book and seen my name in it.
So surreal. People work really hard all their lives for something like that. I feel like such an asshole because one day I was just like, “Fuck it. I’ll submit the only three poems I’ve written in the past five years.”
Now I feel like I’m working backwards, which is kind of exciting. This month I’ll debate myself on posting originals to this blog, hem and haw over trying an open mic night for the first time, and scrounge for pieces to read and analyze.
My daily challenge is to add and annotate lyrics over on Rock Genius. I had a good ol’ time adding notes to one of my favorite Slipknot songs. Really dark stuff, if you’re into that. During April, I’ll post a digest on my usual Poetry Appreciation Tuesday so I don’t overload my dashboard area, messy as it already is with raw and half-baked ideas.
Another challenge is NaPoWriMo; the poetry version of the popular NaNoWriMo. Arguably less intimidating than November’s National Novel Writing Month, this challenges writers to 30 poems in 30 days, often with prompts. I think I’ll try it.
One thing I really want to get out of April – besides reading the entire 2014 Poet’s Market, meeting my daily challenges, and completing my drafts for The Unconventional Halfling – is to understand something that for the life of me I have never been able to figure out since elementary school. Perhaps you have a good answer to these questions, elusive/invisible/imaginary reader. Tell me:
What makes good poetry? Is there such a thing as bad poetry and if so, what makes it bad?
BLOG OF RHIANNIMATOR 