You may be familiar with NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month (in November) and NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month (in April). At The Waters, the online poetry forum that I co-administer, we also have NoPoWriMo, November Poetry Writing Month. That is, as if writing a poem a day weren’t hard enough in April, we do it in November as well.
This means 30 new poem drafts twice a year. It’s true that not all of them are keepers. Some need a little work, others lots of work, and some just get scrapped. If I’m lucky, I salvage something from each draft — if only a good idea or image or turn of phrase.
Now that November’s over, it’s time to get busy on revisions and submissions!