Goings On In The Thick of National Poetry Month

This is my first year of close National Poetry Month awareness. And beyond the normal readings, there are some really interesting projects going on out there.

NaPoWriMo

For my part I decided to participate in NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, which challenges you to write a poem a day and post them somewhere online. Let me tell you, this has not been easy. It's difficult to relinquish a poem (for the time being) to be read after working on it only one day. And even a short poem takes a lot of energy and some days I barely skate a poem past the finish line. On the other hand, I'm glad I'm doing this. It's been rewarding to get to know and use the site Hello Poetry to post poems and get feedback. Two weeks in, my breakout stats look like this: 3 poems about death, 3 poems in meter, 4 poems with pop culture topics, 1 narrative about a murder, 3 poems "in the moment," and 3 ars poetica.

Check them out: http://hellopoetry.com/-mary-mccray/

Pulitzer Remix

My friend and poet Ann Cefola is involved with the project Pulitzer Remix. Poets were asked to read a Pulitzer Prize winning novel to excerpt 30 found poems. Visit the site and you can search for poems from novels you know (like The Yearling or Age of Innocence or The Color Purple). I also highly recommend Ann Cefola's poems posted so far (http://www.pulitzerremix.com/category/now-in-november/)  from the book Now in November. She is a master at picking out really striking scenes and then ending them with a punch.

Savvy Verse & Wit's Blog Tour

I would also recommend the blog tour going on at Savvy Verse & Wit; I really love the variety to be found there:

• Savvy Verse & Wit kicks it off  with a great video and transcript of Yusef Komunyakaa reading "Facing It" (April 1)
•  The blog Necromancy Never Pays posts a great poem  by Natalie Shapero called "Flags & Axes" (April 4)
• Booking Mama does a post of children's poetry reviews (April 6)
• Rhapsody in Books has two posts so far, one small essay defending poetry in general with a very funny practical use for poetry to be found at the end (April 7), and one post about the poetry found in rock lyrics. She posts the full lyric to Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road," a pretty perfect Americana poem IMHO. (April 14)
• Maximum Exposure has posted my favorite Neruda Sonnet XVII (April 8)
• The Picky Girl has a fabulous post about how to host a Blackout Poetry party. I'm gonna do this! (April 9)
• Tabatha Yeatts has an interesting post about Fibonacci Sequence poems. The Fibonacci Sequence is a mathematical form found throughout the natural world. I just learned about this form  from a lecture on poems using mathematics last year in Santa Fe. (April 10)

Check the blog tour timeline to read any or all of these. Explore and learn this month and every month!