One Year of Poems!

Today, December 13, 2011, marks the 365th day that I have written a poem a day.  I am amazed and proud of what I’ve done.  Oh, not every poem is anything great.  Maybe none of them is truly great.  But some stand as very good, for me, never having considered myself a poet.  A writer of verse.  An artist/writer.  Maybe those things.  “Poet” seems a hard title to claim for myself, just as “artist” has been.  Regardless of all that, I have written a poem a day for ONE YEAR!  The original pact with myself was for 49 days and now look!  I am quite proud.

Today I went as far as to write two.  Some days I have struggled to come up with even a thought, a start, let alone something that I would want others to read.  And some days I have had to settle on something not entirely satisfying and get on with the responsibilities of earning a living, paying the gas bill, etc.  But I have found this to be a wonderful practice, a lovely morning routine added to my already daily routine of journal writing.  It has been a different sort of way to document the days, my mood, the vagaries of my brain.  And an amazingly rewarding discipline.

At many points I thought it might be time to quit.  Sitting there in my pajamas, tea finished, tapping my pen, looking around the room for some piece of thing to get me started, finding not even a single thought in my brain, I’d think maybe it’s over, maybe there is nothing left in me, maybe it’s time to stop.  Of course there is always something in me, in all of us, I know that.  I am certain of that.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of unearthing it or giving it permission to crawl out of its cocoon and emerge.

So there it is.  One year of poems.  I am not ready to stop now, either.  Maybe someday I will be.  Or maybe some unforeseen thing will bring this to an end.  Not yet, though. Tomorrow begins another year of poems.