Hi everybody! Welcome to our official first Monday Poetry Post of April. Today is the third, and I am a few lines into my third poem of the month.
Sometimes I worry I’m only capable of writing starkly biographic poetry. Case in point: both the poems I’ve completed so far this month were written in/about car trips and name-drop people I know IRL. They’re also about my abundant affection for the world and my people in it, which is apparently just teeming over the surface of my scalp! I’m not dumping on confessional poetry, but sometimes I look at the subject matter of my poems and worry it’s violently solipsistic.
So, of course, I am remedying this by working on a poem that’s (currently) about my own creative narcissism. One of my problems is that I think so far ahead now – last night I tossed and turned til 2am, unable to shut my brain up/down, and sat up to grab my journal and write down some lines I’d been mentally drafting for Tuesday’s essay. This is not uncommon for me anymore; it can be difficult to stop and observe and feel when my brain is drafting next week’s projects.
I was on my midday coffee walk when I snapped myself out of this. There’s a community garden near me, and now that it’s April, I can go in. I almost didn’t cross the street and take the long way back. But I did, trying to win a few more minutes in the sunshine. When I arrived at the garden, the door was open. It’s been six months. I went up the stairs and into the raised beds, where it was evident someone was working – there was a shed, which I couldn’t see into despite another open door, and a few signs of excited life, a cute purple caddy with brand-new tools peeking over the edge. Other people had been waiting for the garden to open too.
As I drank my coffee and stood in silence on the pathway, I reframed my poetic concerns. Yes, my first two poems were both straightforward and limited, constrained by my perception of the world. But I was practicing the precept Donald Revell defended in The Art of Attention, which you may recall as a recent recommendation. Compared to my poems from 2020, when I was shut inside all the time, these poems may not seem very introspective or profound. But I find I have more life to record now. I am less reliant on reverie and memory now that I can live more fully.
On my walk home, I glanced up and saw a pair of gold mylar balloons still stuck in the tree at the corner. They have been there since shortly after I moved in, and I’ve become used to them. I noticed them again, for the first time, today.
Two little things before I say TTFN.
One: I meant to tell you about a specific notebook I think you should buy. I got this from my parents for my birthday a few years ago, the Grids & Guides notebook, and it is my go-to NaPoWriMo notebook. I love using this for poems because it’s a notebook for “visual learners.” That means it has graph paper in it, and it also has fun charts/diagrams dispersed throughout. I have found this keeps me from getting into a rut with my poetry, and it’s especially helpful for drafting poems if you want new ways of creating word banks, maps, lists, etc. Here’s an example of a spread, which became last week’s poem Love on Mars. Check out the diagram opposite my brainstorming:
Two!
I haven’t used the Substack “chat” feature (except to bother my other writer friends) but I thought it may be a fun way to keep up during NaPoWriMo, if you’re interested in sharing goals, progress, drafts, problems, etc. as you write. It’s an experiment and may fail/suck. But we’re trying it anyway! Participate as much or as little as you’d like. If you want to share a draft every day, go for it. And if you’re going to try your best at NaPoWriMo but know you won’t manage to write every day, please come share your wins in the thread! If that interests you, can get chattie here.
Okay. Paid subscribers, get ready! You’re going to see an essay from me tomorrow, a “draft dump” with all the NaPoWriMo drafts I’ve written so far on Wednesday, and a behind-the-scenes look at one of my poems on Thursday. I hope you’re ready.
Free subscribers, I’ll see you Friday for our dispatch…unless you want to upgrade for the month of April.