National Poetry Month is Almost Here

I love that people all around me go crazy with writing poems every April. Okay, not everyone around me, but the poets do. I can’t follow suit. I tried last year to join the poem-a-day for April festivities. I lasted two days. Two very fine days.

If I were to make another attempt, I might make it to three days, but only if I neglected something else. Yes, I’m hanging in here with the blog-a-day program, but poems are another matter. I can’t just sling them out like hash browns. They require at least the mental energy of a breakfast casserole.

In addition to being National Poetry Month, April happens to be one of the busiest grading periods of the year. I’m already compounding that issue by trying to coordinate a week long literary event at my school. Because I’m insane. If you had any reason to doubt, know now that putting on programs at the end of the school year through burn out and grading fatigue is the very definition of insanity.

Nonetheless, normal levels of insanity rarely suffice for me. I need to go above and beyond. So this is what I’m thinking I will do as my contribution to National Poetry Month…

I’m going to make (or at least plan to make) updates to Journally. I’ll try to post a prompt a day through the month of April whether anyone wants them or not.

I know that there are plenty of places already providing daily prompts for poetry month, but really you should plan to use mine because they’ll probably be screwier than most.

Someone told me that Felder Rushing, Mississippi’s most famous gardener, had a sign in his yard once that said, “Keep Fondren Funky” (Fondren being his neighborhood and one of Jackson’s historic districts). Someone has to do the job.

Other people will give you inspiring prompts, and you’ll love them for as much as a week before you run out of inner inspiration. When that happens, come to me and Journally. I’ll be there, keeping Poetry Month weird.