30 days of poetry— I challenge myself

What is Poetry?

The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

PREFACE TO THE LYRICAL BALLADS(2ND ED.), WORDSWORTH., WILLIAM

This is the famous definition of poetry given by Wordsworth. In the same book he calls his poetry ‘experimental’. According to him, it is the poet’s business to embody in their poetry the general passions of men. Poetry should be full of emotion and passion to convey through it the feelings of the poet themselves.

I have always been captivated by poetry. I used to think that all that rhymes is poetry. Soon, I found out that is very very far from the truth. Rhymes are not always poetry. Likewise, poetry doesn’t always have to rhyme. In fact, I understood very recently that rhymes, meter, caesura and so on are just the technical aspects of a poem. But what makes poetry what it is, is the emotion and passion carried through the words.

The Giants of poetry

Surrounded by books from epics to golden treasuries to song books, I have marvelled at the skill of poets from ancient to modern times. As alluded in Shakespeare’s Sonnet XVIII, poetry is eternal.

As long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

SONNET XVIII, SHAKESPEARE., WILLIAM

I am intimidated by all the giants that have written the World. The emotion they delivered through each and every word, each and every letter haunts me. If each one of the poets is as big as the Milky Way, I am smaller than an ant. The only thing I can do is look up to them in awe.

An ant with passion

But, I can write too. I cannot write good. But I too pour my passion into my words. It is my shortcoming that the passion doesn’t reach the readers. That is why, I need to improve.

I have understood that I don’t really write as much as I need to. A friend had recently reminded me of the words of the great Sankha Ghosh. I cannot find the exact quote but it said that the first 100 poems one writes is essentially trash and needs to be torn up and discarded. I had said that I haven’t even written 50 poems yet. So, I am more than 50 poems away from even the starting point of poetry.

The 30 day poetry challenge

That is why, I decided to challenge myself to a 30 day poetry challenge. I will write one poem everyday for thirty days. No excuses. So, at the end I’ll have 30 poems to show for the challenge.

I don’t expect any of the poems to be any good. But what I will promise is that I’ll write each and every poem from my heart.

This is not an original idea

When searching for poems to quote on writing a poem everyday, I came across this that talks about undertaking exactly this challenge, only the writer Kwame Dawes is a prolific and experienced poet who did this for a different reason. I am aware that this is not a new idea. While searching for tips and tricks about succeeding such a challenge, I came to know that April is poetry month and a 30 day poetry challenge is done every year in April. However, it’s June already and I don’t want to wait almost a year to practice my craft. So, I chose to do this challenge in July, 2021.

How does the challenge work?

I’ll be using words as prompts for the first 20 days. I chose the final prompts and their order with an online random chooser from the prompts my family and friends gave me. Here’s the 20 prompts:

For the last ten days, I will decide the topic on my own. As a very indecisive person these last 10 days would be the most difficult for me.

I’ll post each poem each day as a seperate blog post. Along with the poem, the post will contain an “author’s thoughts” explaining the poem and the theme or providing any relevant information.

This challenge will begin on 1st July with the first poem and continue without break until 30th July.

On 31st July I’ll be posting the final blog post in the series containing all the links to the 30 poems.

I may share my experience about doing this challenge in a separate post if I have the energy to. But that’ll not be posted untill the second week of August.

The ultimate goal

The ultimate goal of this challenge is simply to have 30 poems at the end of July with one poem written everyday for 30 days.

Disclaimer

I am giving myself the liberty to post bad poems. All the poems will be written from the heart but my words don’t always co-operate with me. But if I sought for perfection in every poem, I doubt that I’d even post one poem.

In conclusion

There’s no conclusion, at least, not yet. Follow along on my journey as I attempt this self-imposed challenge. Hope you enjoy!

Some shameless self promotion

I have a gig on Fiverr where I’ll write a poem for you on any topic you want. You can find that gig here if you are interested in availing my service.