National Poetry Writing Month 2016: A Summary

When I set out to participate in National Poetry Writing Month, I didn’t intend to write a poem every day. I just wanted to write two or three each week. I managed that, with quite a few more than two or three during the first full week of it. I hoped to end the month with anything between six and twelve new works. I did a bit better than that.

I confirmed that I do my best writing when I have external prompts to stimulate my creativity. However, I don’t always need to follow the prompts to take advantage of them—with my creative juices flowing, I’m more likely to write unprompted work, as well.

I attempted a wider variety of poetic styles and voices than I’ve done before, with varying levels of success. The challenge also gave me a chance to try a couple of new ideas I had for using modern technological devices to create poetry. I don’t know if this experience will get me to write more poetry overall, but I think it will improve my work when I do.

Now I have a year to decide if I want to do this again next April.

Here’s how my NaPoWriMo 2016 numbers break down:

• I wrote a total of fifteen poems.

• I wrote ten poems in the first half of the month and five poems in the second half.

• I used the official NaPoWriMo prompts for eight of my poems and did my own thing with the other seven.

• My most “Liked” poem was “A Poem about a Flower” with thirteen. This poem also garnered the most comments, with six.

• My least “Liked” poem was “I Sang (A Borrowed Poem)” which only got two.

• On average, my poems each received around five “Likes”.

In general, the number of responses to my poems dropped as the frequency of my posts fell off. I lost my momentum.

The most deeply personal poem I wrote this month was “Silence,” the last one I wrote, and I admit I’m a bit disappointed that it didn’t get more responses. Perhaps it’s too personal—I may not have translated the experience to be universal enough for readers to relate to it.

And now, it’s back to book reviews and occasional posts about library-related issues. I have a stack of books I’ve read over the past couple of months that I want to review. I’ll do my best to knock those out soon.