2 May 2012

Poetry in April

As you probably know, April is Poetry Month both here in Canada and in the U.S. For the last three years, I was heavily involved with the Edmonton Poetry Festival and because we are now in a different province, I had a much less poetry-frenzied month. While it looked like a fun time, I think I needed to miss it this year.

Instead, my BFF and I pledged to write a poem-a-day. The caveat was that the poems didn't have to be good, it was just about generating raw material. And, dear reader, we did it. A lot of my poems were mediocre at best (I wrote a love letter to my favourite brand of beer, to give you an idea), but it was exciting to be in a creative space where I didn't have an agenda. I have been working on Glossolalia in one form or another for six years now. That's a long time in the world of 1840s Mormon polygamy, let me tell you. Writing just to write, just to see what words and images arise, just for *gasp* the fun of it was incredibly liberating. I'm definitely going to do this exercise again.

So, Poetry Month 2012 for me was not the manic month it has been in the recent past, but it was very productive and fun in its own quiet way. Tell me, did you do anything poetry-wise this April?