NaPoWriMo: the home stretch

The sun is shining over the last day of the Leicestershire Easter holidays.  I’ve been sitting by the pond, having forsaken notebook, smart phone and computer screen to compose a poem in my head (see The Poetry School’s Day 23 prompt here).  The cats are gamboling like spring lambs and my husband’s cleaning the kitchen.  There’s poetry and music everywhere, it seems.

What I’m listening to: ‘The Songs & Poems of Molly Drake’ by The Unthanks

Finding poetry in the prose: Sarah Baume’s ‘A Line Made By Walking’

Lines I wish I’d written:

…we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice

from‘Nothing Twice’ by Wislawa Symborska

and, by way of contrast, most of the lines from Kathryn Maris’ ‘Darling, Would You Please Pick Up Those Books?’ (priceless)

Out & about: a walk amongst the bluebells in Swithland Woods with a friend:

The Easter holiday’s not been all poetry, music and frolics.  Far from it.  For the past two weeks I’ve been doing DIY and cleaning – LOTS of cleaning.  We’re putting our home of twenty-plus years on the market (we’re down-sizing) so there’s lots to do in readiness for agent’s photos and prospective viewings.  And I’m no domestic goddess.

So participating in NaPoWriMo has been balm when all out of elbow grease.  Thanks to Carrie Etter’s Facebook group, prompts from various sources (see previous blog post) and inspiration in unlikely places (clickbait, Monty Don – and DIY/cleaning), I’ve stuck to writing a poem a day for the first April ever.

I really am grateful to fellow members of Carrie’s group; we’ve kept each other going, I think, with progress/process posts and comments, and I’ve also discovered forms that are new to me (yay for the Golden Shovel and the wealth of prompts, techniques, games and writing generators on Language is a Virus!).

I’ve cultivated a daily routine of new writing early in the day and typing up before bedtime to begin the re-drafting process on-screen (where I can faff about and move stuff around – and still be able to read what I’ve written).  I now have seventeen poem drafts in my new sub folder (*pinches self*) and pages and pages more in my notebook which may get picked over/plundered at some point in the future.  So there are poems with wings and lines with legs (or maybe it’s the other way around – time will tell) and probably some with feet of clay.  At least I haven’t left my initial efforts to languish (I’m mindful of that pile of filled-and-forgottens on a shelf in my study).

There’s one more week to go, which won’t be so easy with the start of term in the offing, but the finishing line’s in sight (and, no, I have’t been watching TV footage of the London marathon 🙂 ).

Whatever you’re doing this fine day, I hope that some of it’s the stuff that makes you feel whole.

x