At the End of NaPoWriMo
I wrote a bit about the process halfway through, but I’ve finally finished NaPoWriMo, where you write a poem every single day in April. I had foolishly thought the process would be relatively straightforward, but I was drastically wrong about that. Writing so many lines over so many days was a real challenge. It was difficult to keep motivated and continue writing.
Halfway through the process, I forgot exactly what poetry is. Nothing seemed to make sense:
Started #napowrimo with a vague idea of what a poem was, even if i couldn't write it. Now I have no idea — David Lewis (@davidralphlewis) April 13, 2017> I lost confidence in my writing. Poetry felt like a vague, incomprehensible mess. Unlike short stories, which rely on a clear structure, I struggled to find clear rules for poetry. I didn't know the rules of the game and therefore I did not know how to change them. I lost faith in what I was writing. I still wrote every day, but with limited faith in what I was doing. Hence this poem:
Dreams
This poem for you was meant to be a gilded palace, ornate and impossible, beautiful in its endless splendour. This poem for you was meant to be filled with pleasure gardens, a maze of rooms and libraries stocked to interrogate the human spirit. This poem for you was going to be carved at the top of a mountain Over thousands of years, taking generations to haul boulders up the steepest slope. This poem for you was actually a long abandoned hut in the middle of a forgotten forest, blackened walls crawling with vines beginning their slow sombre embrace. I've long since praised the idea of a daily routine and it was this that eventually pulled me through. I stopped worrying about the quality of what I was producing and eventually just got on with the business with writing it. The daily routine helped because it didn't give me time to give into the fear that my writing was trite. Instead, I just had to push forward and write the damn things. Are they any good? I don't know. What I do know is that I now have thirty poems to edit and mess around with. Fear of the blank page is what stops many people writing, but once the poems have been written they can be shaped and edited. Now, I have something to work with. Here's another written during the process:The Trap
These four walls bleached white but not by the sun Decorated with electric blue bolts, hundreds paper every smooth surface. In here, I have made myself at home. Arrange furniture so I recline in comfort. Seeing dust settle like rain, I snap open curtains to let the unlikely light in. I'll never leave but I never think of it as a prison. It is All I have ever known. All I ever will. The whole process has shown me I still have a lot to learn. With any creative art, just scratching the surface reveals a whole world you were previously unaware of. This process has shown me there are thousands of modern poets I have little to no idea about. There are endless forms and metaphors that I can play around with. There's a huge community I knew nothing about. On the days I struggled to find inspiration, there was endless prompts and help online. From this point, I want to read even wider to expand my knowledge of this art form. NaPoWriMo may not have given me anything I'm majorly proud with, but it's certainly given me a start along the road. Here's one last poem written during the process:Watching
From above, lives are blinking pixels on a faulty monitor In black and white, flat-roofed buildings are merely blank spaces waiting to be filled with cracks. Below, a scatter of static as I fly overhead, unseen and unmanned. There are no rules anymore. We can decide at any time to reset the screen wipe it clean and start again. I fly onwards, invisible in the choking cloud.