Thirty days: 30 paintings, 30 poems

In November 2011, six months after Jeff died and still consumed with grief, I decided to pour that energy into a 30-day exercise of writing a poem each day.

The poet, David Lehman, wrote a poem every day for a year and collected some of those poems in his book, The Daily Mirror.  In the introduction, he noted how it was 'hit or miss', some poems falling flat and some days were complete misses. I'd read those poems a few years ago and found the concept intriguing.

I'm not a prolific poet, I tend to wait for inspiration; the sudden poetic phrase or line.  It doesn't happen often. By that November, I'd written a dozen  poems about Jeff, his death, my grief, increasing my poetic batting average and  I figured there might be another 30 poems wallowing inside me.

It took a couple of nights to realize I would not be receiving divine inspiration every day.  I don't know that I ever did.  I learned to find inspiration; facing the blank page and grabbing an idea out of the air.

I met that first challenge completing 30 poems in 30 days.  Two poems were almost really good.  Another four had potential.  Ten others worth salvaging and the rest would be filed away.  Not a bad effort for a poet.

The following November, I took the challenge again.  I had moved to my native Iowa and it was my first winter in nearly 30 years.  I was enamored of the quiet, the bitter cold, the life and death of seasons, and many of those poems are inspired by Iowa's beautiful but unforgiving winter landscape.

As a seasoned poem-a-day poet, I knew what to expect.  I didn't fret nights when I had nothing.  I would open my notebook, rummage around in my head and start writing.  I had about the same results as the previous year.

I'd written 60 poems in two years (not counting any written the other months) and of those 60 poems, four have been published.  I'm a poet, not a mathematician, but it seems like a good average.

One of those published poems, 'In A Hopper Painting', became the inspiration for this year's November ekphrastic exercise in poetic masochism.  I love the regional realistm of Edward Hopper and in his six decades as an artist, he left an extensive body of work.  I would write 30 poems, each inspired by his paintings.

It has been the most difficult of the challenges.  I read essays on his works.  I spent hours thumbing through books of his collected works.  I read his weighty biography.  I discovered  little-known works; works not typical of Hopper.  His paintings offered an unfinished narrative, a poetic leap. I avoided more linear interpretations and sought out an emotional landing.  Some paintings veered toward a more personal experience.

'Nighthawks' is not my favorite Hopper painting, but as the month closes, I realize it is the most fitting finish to this exercise.

Tonight, in the quiet dark, I'll sit down, open my notebook, stare at the lonely creatures gathered at the counter and imagine how it all will end.

Writing Through November (NaNoWriMo, kids)

October is coming to an end.  In the Big Woods, we saw our first snowfall this past week.  I've brought in the plants, stocked the woodpile, stored the patio furniture, and aired my winter coats.  Later this week, I'll clean the pick-up and then move it into the garage until April, swapping it for the 4-wheel drive Blazer.

Like most folks in the Snowbelt, November is the month to hunker down, to refamiliarize ourselves with long, winter nights; the quiet of a crystalline moon, the indistinct rustle of dried oak leaves still clinging to branches, the kick and comfort of the furnace.  It is a poet's month.

For three years, I have participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  In 2009, I took the challenge of writing 50,000 words by month's end or 1,700 words daily.  I worked on a story idea, set in Cherokee, NC, at the foot of the Smoky Mountains.  I managed just over 51,000 words and haven't looked at it since.

The year Jeff died, my days were full of words and sorrowed poems and I spent that November taking the NaNoWriMo poem-a-day challenge.  I do not participate in the online community, but I did use prompts from Robert Brewer, an editor with Writer's Digest magazine.

For poets, the idea of writing a poem a day is terrifying (I hear this from other poets whenever I mention
doing the challenge).  It's a masochistic marathon, really.  Poets love to ponder words and lines, images and ideas; they wait for inspiration.  If you're writing a poem every day, you're taking inspiration from whatever, wherever you can.

I would read the prompt each morning and then spend the day thinking about it, sometimes an idea would form quickly and other times, nothing.  Some prompt were absolutely meaningless (I don't write political poems or limericks or haiku).  One prompt, that year, on 11/11/11, was to write a math poem.  I'm a poet, for pity's sake, I hate math (but I did write a poem using mathematical terms and it is one of the best poems to come from that year).

Last year, my friend Kathe R. took the challenge with me.  At the end of November, each week through mid-January, we would send one another five of the poems for critiquing.  

I'm a sporadic poet, at best, but in two years, I've written 60 poems.  Most poetry manuscripts are a minimum of 48 poems.  Let me be honest, out of those 60 poems, I consider two of them exciting, and maybe eight poems are good.  Three of these poems have been published.  Another dozen are worthy of a second look and some refining.  At roughly thirty percent (I can do some math); for any poet to write 32 half-decent poems in a year is something to celebrate.

In less than a week, the challenge goes up again and I've had a prompt idea since September (ekphrasis, I bore easily).  I'm nervous about keeping up my end of the bargain, it's not like I can carbo-load for this or do any stretches (I did draft a poem this week just to keep the wheels greased).

Afternoons pass quickly now, and night folds over the Big Woods without much warning, and I will sit in November's chill-black and write poems (and I'm going to participate in Movember).  I say, bring it.