Guess what! I did it! And what's more, I'm not the only one! I think all of my friends who took on the Poetry Month Challenge made it through the whole month. None of us missed a day - how cool is that? Especially for everyone else who managed it, I mean, it was probably much harder for my friends than for me. They all wrote full poems - one a day - and they had school and jobs to balance on top of that! Seriously, I'm sending you all virtual air-fives right now. What you managed to accomplish is amazing. I'm so proud of each of you!
So, other than feeling really cool at the end of the month, what is the point of the Poetry Month challenge? Honestly, I think my friends and I started it just for the sake of the challenge. We were in Jr. High, we didn't care about learning stuff back then. But now, there is a reason we keep trying to do it, despite our hectic adult schedules. Put simply, we do it because it's hard, and none of us are very good at poetry. Well, maybe we are now, but you know . . .
As a writer, there's a lot to be said for poetry. Forcing yourself to work within a certain rhythm, or constrain yourself to words that rhyme, or try to tell a story or evoke an image in a limited number of lines - let's face it, that's hard to do! It's these limits that forces us to stretch our creativity and build new ways of thinking for ourselves. And doing it everyday for a month - you'll be hard pressed to lose what you've gained.
And let's face it, writing one poem a day for a month - that's hard to do. It's almost worth doing just for the bragging rights.
Though, truth be told, I feel I went a little easy on myself this month. Limiting myself to a one haiku a day - though it had its challenges - seemed almost too easy sometimes. After all, they're only three lines. I did have days where I considered dropping the haiku idea and just writing whatever type of poetry I wanted, but I stuck with it anyway. You know why? Because it was different. I'm terrible at poetry! I can't work with rhythms and meters - and let's not even get started on rhyming. So, I may have skipped the rhyming thing, but I wanted to challenge myself to work in meters anyway, and let me tell you, it was hard. The meter of haikus is 5-7-5, but apparently all of my thoughts come out in even numbered syllables, so I was always wanting to do 4-6-4. Finding new ways to phrase my thoughts within the meter was just the kind of creative challenge I needed. It was hard sometimes - even a little frustrating. But I'm glad I did it.
I can't say that I'm a better poet now than I was at the beginning of the month. Indeed, I think one of the biggest things I've learned is that I'm terrible at haikus. And I think I could do better at evoking imagery. I didn't know that before. Now that I do, I can work on it - I can fix it and become a better writer. It's so nice to be able to pinpoint a fault in your writing. It makes bettering it so much simpler. Oddly, it also makes me excited for next April. I wonder what I'll do then . . . Should I try forcing myself to rhyme everyday? Oooo, scary.
Congratulations to all those who made it through this challenge! Even if you didn't - you tried, and that's amazing. This is the first time I've made it through the whole month without missing a day. I think it's the first time for a few of my friends too. What a cool month! Best of luck on all your future writing endeavors. :)
