I suspect this opening line to T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” was in some part responsible for April being designated National Poetry Month, but I don’t know for sure and don’t feel like Googling it right now. Regardless, it’s fine. April is fine. March is my birthday month (late March, too, the 28th) so when April starts I feel ready for a challenge. Which is why I take part in what many call the “Thirty/Thirty Challenge,” posting a new poem to social media every day of April; thirty poems in thirty days. So far this month, I have not fallen behind at all—26 poems posted to social media in 26 days—but this year I have allowed myself a shortcut that I have not in year’s past. If I’m on a roll, I allow myself to write two or three (or four or five!) poems in one day and “stockpile” them for possible future use. I even started a little before April so that on day one, I had perhaps half a dozen options. It’s given me some breathing room; I don’t have to start fresh every morning, facing the blank page, and saying “Okay. What am I writing about today?” I post all the poem as photographs (so the actual text of each one is unsearchable) on Instagram (@Taylor_Mali), but they autopost to Twitter and Facebook. However, on May 1st, I’m going to delete them all and start revising them to see which ones are good enough to submit for publication. Enjoy them while you can!
