Poetry 20:20 up and running


I though it was time for an update on Poetry 20:20 – my project for October where I’m writing a poem a day, Monday to Friday (see the last post).

Basically, it’s going well. I felt like I was stumbling at the starting gun on the first day, when I gave myself 3 hours to draft, and after 2 1/2 of them had very little indeed! But then the deadline miracle happened, and a poem came together. And that’s been the pattern every day since: I get my idea, I start scribbling, it all seems like hopeless nonsense, then 5pm ticks round and somehow it works out. The process is exhilarating, and I’m learning to trust it: only on one day of the seven so far (today’s is not started yet!) do I feel the poem has fallen on its face.

So I’m enjoying the project, and I feel like I’m writing some good work – work that looks surprising complete considering how quickly it has all been written. What’s more, it is definitely pushing me to write in new ways, to think harder about form and voice, so that objective is working too. And I’ve read some very good new poems by other poets in my search for prompts and inspiration, which has been great.

I’m only a third of the way through of course, and I’m aware that I’m being hubristic here; perhaps the gods will now punish me with a stinkingly bad effort today. But so long as I feel like I’m trying my hardest to do something new, even that I think will be all right. Maybe. Just about.

Anyway, if I do you can come and have a laugh at it: ask to join the Facebook group and you can read them all!

Image from Sean Venn on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seanvenn/3630375604/sizes/o/in/photostream/

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