practicing poet

Today I taught my first online poetry workshop! The Zoom platform is fairly straightforward and my participants were gracious and patient as I figured out how to move between my Powerpoint slideshow, YouTube video, MS Word document, and regular screen. It’s challenging to monitor the chat window while also looking at those who choose to use the video option. But I did it! And I was able to share a poem in progress to show how I created a turning point. The first two stanzas aren’t great but it got me to this final stanza, which is better but still needs work:

once Easter was

something solid I could

search for in tall grass

gather in a basket

taste on my tongue

but now it’s the faded

fragrance of lilies

left on the altar

of an empty church

I try to remember that the poems I write each day are drafts; most are 75% complete and I know that at the end of April, I’ll look them over and decide which ones are worth revising. The best part of NaPoWriMo is that it helps you to develop a practice—after a while you get used to producing a poem every day. You set time aside for reflecting and writing, but it’s not the same as working on a novel. There isn’t the same kind of continuity, which means you have to dig deeper to come up with something that can stand on its own. This afternoon several folks were brave enough to share their poems, and I was impressed with the quality of writing they produced in just a few minutes. Writing a poem a day is challenging but it’s made me more invested in expanding my vocabulary. I’ll hear a word on the news and the next day I’ll build a poem around that word. I just watched a documentary on mental illness so will likely write about that tomorrow. For next week’s class, I think we’ll try writing an ode. It’s a good time to pay tribute to the essential workers who are keeping us afloat right now…