It is that time of year again, Spring has sprung and poets all over the world are limbering up to take part in NaPoWriMo. Founded in 2011, I have been a participant since 2014 (when I discovered it) having battled Camp NaNoWriMo and the full event in the Autumn in 2013. From time to time I have discovered other such boot camps but to be honest I have rarely done anything with the writing afterwards. A waste of over 100,000. So now is my strategy planning time.
I love taking part just for the fun and comradery of the event and the scheduled commitment to writing – which after last week, I know I can do alone. I had submission deadlines as well as day job work and performances, so I basically drew up an old school timetable (not done since exam revision time) and was as hard-core. Relentless. I managed all submissions as a result and even had a poem published. This year I need a Post-NaPoWriMo Plan.
As with other years I have signed the blog up as a participating site and will be writing about the event throughout the month. I will also post extracts from the poems I write. Many people will be taking part posting full poems and another aspect of the event is reading work by other poets. I am going to carve NaPo reading time into my April writing time to do just that.
Find out more and sign up your site here http://www.napowrimo.net/
This poem featured in the Top 10 listing for ‘Best poems about Spring’ compiled by The Guardian in 2014.
In Perpetual Spring by Amy Gerstler
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Amy Gerstler won the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for Bitter Angel (1990). Her early work includes White Marriage/Recovery (1984), and her more recent works include Nerve Storm (1993), Medicine (2000), Ghost Girl (2004), and Dearest Creature (2009), which the New York Times named a Notable Book of the Year. A graduate of Pitzer College and Bennington College, Gerstler has taught at the Art Center College of Design, the University of Southern California, and the Bennington Writing Seminars program. She lives in California with her husband, the artist and author Benjamin Weissman.
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