Celebrating the bright lights of poetry

This year's National Poetry Month is already more than half over, and oh, we better not be counting how many new poems have been churned out.

Some people observe this celebration by writing a poem every day. Though I'm not one of them, I've heard quite a few friends say they've signed on to NaPoWriMo, with the plan to write a poem every day for the whole month of April. You might want to follow that link in the sentence above, as it's a site that offers prompts, examples and lots of encouragement -- every day, all month long.

Like I said, I'm not that dedicated, especially as for me, poems mostly 'arrive' as words in the night, and then take more drafts than I might even want to admit.

There is, however, one organized poem-writing contest I always take part in -- the 2-Day Poetry Contest sponsored by CV2 Magazine. You get ten words on Friday night and have to use all of them in a poem by the always-too-soon deadline on Sunday night. And there's always at least one word in the list that's so obscure, pretty much no one has ever heard of it. This year's stumper was (for me, at least) roric. Somehow, I don't think it's going to catch on in any big way.

There's still time to find some way to celebrate this special month -- if you don't want to write a poem, you might at least read some poetry. Plenty of it is available online, with many sites offering suggestions, including the fun-sounding Poem in Your Pocket project.

Neon-bright and maybe even flashy, poetry really isn't the daunting subject your crabbiest English teacher managed to scare you with. Poke around and you might surprise yourself. Who knows, you might even write a poem.