A Month of Poetry

I haven’t done it every day,  but aiming to write 30 poems in 30 days is an  interesting challenge to try,  and seeing other peoples’ offerings is a positive experience.

No masterpieces are being created – not by me anyway – but there’s some potential treasure to mine for later.  Apart from this obvious benefit, It’s teaching me what I already know – that if you show up and write, so does the muse.  Writing, be it poetry, fiction, or any other genre, is 90% work and 10% inspiration. That’s not to say that magic doesn’t happen, it does – that intangible, can’t-quite-put-your-finger-on-it sparkle that sets something apart – but mostly writing is muscle memory: the more you write the stronger it gets.

These sorts of challenges can be positive if you show up and attempt them. It rids us of the terrible spectre of perfection, whilst we get down to the bare bones of crafting words.  Often we fail to create anything because we fear failure, yet there is no real failure in the creative life, be it writing or pottery or art. Each attempt at  bringing something into life teaches us: it teaches us what we enjoy, what we do well, what we need more practice at; it teaches us that we can produce something if we work at it, that results can be unpredictable and that no experience is wasted. We re-shape the clay, or the words or the painting and produce something new with it.