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 22nd Poetry Prompt

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). In honor of today’s being the 22nd day of Na/GloPoWriMo 2022, I’d like to challenge you to write a poem that uses repetition. You can repeat a sound, a word, a phrase, or an image, or any combination of things.

April 22nd Poem

Modern Living Through Chemistry 

22 April 2022 

There’s a pill for everything that ails you 

There’s a pill for the side effects of the pill that was supposed to fix you 

There’s a pill for the aftermath of the surgery that was to realign your spine 

There’s a pill to help relax your mind 

There’s a pill to help you speak clearly 

There’s a pill to help you see keenly 

There’s a pill to keep you alive for a few more hours 

There’s a pill to take you out in less time 

There’s a pill that helps you digest all of your other pills 

There is a pill that makes you pee 

There’s a pill that helps your diarrhea 

There’s a pill that can help you not smell your farts 

There’s a pill that will help you deal with the cost of your pills 

There’s a pill that will make you more focused on the good in life 

There’s a pill that makes you think 

There’s a pill that helps you gain muscle 

There’s a pill that makes you write better poetry 

There’s a pill that makes you a potent lover 

There’s a pill that will stop those swimmers 

There’s a pill called the morning after 

There’s a pill that is bitter to take 

There’s a pill that is too big for your throat 

There’s a pill that tastes like cake 

There’s a pill for that 

And with all these pills 

Here I stand, again there's a pill for that too 

But I am left wondering when the pills will end 

What did we do before these pills ended up in our hands 

If this is the better life 

Or the result of living it too much 

You can take the pills 

Let nature take its course 

Reaching Out

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com 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.

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