Poem For Your Thoughts? or, Quantity Helps

[jjhunter]

2011 was an interesting year for me, poetry-wise. I had tried on 'poet' for size before then — had even grown used to claiming it — but I only wrote one or two short poems a month, if that, and of those maybe two or three a year seemed worth remembering. What changed? That December before, I happened on an opportunity to do something ambitious I didn't know if I could do (write 1k+ of epic poetry in under two weeks) and took the leap before sense could catch up — and after writing Mother-Tongue, I hungered to be more than a sometimes poet. After writing that much poetry in that short a time, I stopped being so sure I knew what I couldn't do.

If 10,000 hours on average is the difference between dabbling and mastery for most fields, what might writing 10,000 poems do?

I didn't think of it quite that consciously at the time, but 2011 is the year I first hosted my now-traditional April Haikai fest ("one poem seed a day for the entire month of April"), the year I founded poetree, and the year I started the 'Poem For Your Thoughts?' Day Project.


'Poem For Your Thoughts?' Day has a simple premise: "Leave me a prompt or prompts of any kind today, [date], and I'll write you a free poem."

No promises of quality, or format, or time of arrival — I wrote a lot of haiku and haikai for this project! — but for several iterations, I opened up my inbox to seeds of possibility on a given day, and committed myself to writing a poem for every. single. one. as soon as I could.

As you might imagine, this is the kind of project where it helps to set limits time- and/or number-wise on just how many prompts you need to fill, and the kind of exercise too where because you are doing so many, because you're doing them all for free, eventually you learn as I learned to stop worrying quite so much about the quality of any one particular fill, and to embrace the opportunity to try new things with language and format just to vary up writing in such quantity.

On average, every time I offered some variation on 'Poem For Your Thoughts?', I wrote one or two poems I considered especially memorable within a day. The following, written for raze's prompt 'Muddy hooves', is one of them.

BY THE GRACE OF MONTY PYTHON

the matter of transportation
was solved by judicious application of coconuts

the heartbreak of the limo heist -
atmospheric drenching from the heavens -
even the gradual disintegration of their special dancing shoes -

all this could be borne because
they were not, in fact, trudging on foot to their high school prom
soon to the target of universal social scorn
and livelong embarrassment

no, they were riding the sound of coconut
shells clomping, just like in Monty Python
and that made it cool
that made it daring and edgy, not pathetic

it was okay for their shoes to be muddy
when they were actually horses' hooves

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In honor of this post's subject, should you choose to comment here in any fashion (and I welcome your thoughts, reflections, associations, whatever you're move to share), I will — eventually — respond to your comment in poem form. (No promise of more than haiku, though!)

Comments

[untonuggan]

There is an awesome episode of Absolutely Fabulous where someone comes in to Edina's office and at one point removes her falsies and gives them to Bubble to take to the woman's nanny (because her child won't bottle feed without them). Bubble looks at them kind of confusedly, and then does the coconut clop-clop thing from Monty Python while leaving the office. It is the most beautiful reference ever and sends me into fits of giggles whenever I see it.

This poem is also a beautiful reference/tribute and I hold you in awe. <3

[jjhunter]

visuals
to grin
by! I like
the way Monty Python
is so timeless touchstone clear—
coconuts or falsies, clapping recalls
a certain magic suspension
of normal convention,
relief by
whimsy

[kaberett]

Every time I see you do this - host poetry-for-prompts - I am astonished and a little intimidated; it's something I keep wishing I were brave enough to try. And that you then approach it so slantwise, with such creativity - oh, you show me ways, you teach me I can dare to dare.

[calissa]

Thank you for sharing a bit about your journey as a poet. I find it reassuring that one day I might be able to make a similar journey.

I had been thinking I would do something to celebrate April as poem month. I really like your idea of one poem seed a day, rather that one poem. That seems like a more reasonable target.

And thank you for sharing your poem. It had both humour and dignity.

[cadenzamuse]

I am horribly,
GAD, brain-stuntedly
intimidated

but I want to write daily
but I want to sleep in more