Musical Influence:  Last Chance (Remastered)- Brand X Music (Brand X Music Vol. 15, 2012)

Let me just tell you I'm glad April is over.

Not only is it tax month (referred to as hell) and the start of a new quarter (which means extra tax figures for first quarter to be paid in) it is also AprWriMo. (I cannot remember what GPS coined it a few years ago- I do believe it was Awrapino. She said it sounded better.)

This year I didn't do AprWriMo (or Awrapino) because The Office of Letters and Light sponsored the very first Camp NaNo in April this year. This was fantastic news because Camp NaNo allows the Camper to set their own word count to challenge for the month. NO 50k balance for me. I took on 10k knowing what kind of month I'd have in store for myself at work. There was a certain scene in the beginning of the first book of Cin's that I wanted to rewrite. Well, I wanted to rewrite the prologue and first chapter and I thought 10k was a good round number.

I was wrong.

So April 1 rolls around and I'm all set with my notes to start fleshing out these scenes I've seen in my head. Only to be trolling around the Internet and realize it's National Poetry Month. I love poetry. There is something magical about holding a book in your hands; but for me, there is something omnipotent about holding poetry. The way it rolls off the page. The brief idea, the fledgling moment words come to life and transport you into this world through as few of words as possible. Concise, beautiful prose- oh how I love thee.

Thoroughly excited by National Poetry Month, I set out on my crusade to get some poetry books and READ poetry in the month of April. Then I found it... oh those seconds in time that froze everything in my little world.

National Poetry Writing Month.

Dumbfounded... All I could think was- for reals?!

I cannot believe I didn't know about this magical challenge. Thirty poems in thirty days. That is no easy task, sir. But in that moment there was no way I'd tell myself no. I haven't written a poem in over a decade and a good one, ha- never. But I told GPS and away we went! Both of us swearing to do the NaPoWriMo challenge. Never you mind I'd already signed up to do Camp NaNo, too.

C'est la vie.

When in Rome...

Yeah... about that-

GPS promised to do a Haiku a day. And me, well, I got caught up in the moment. I promised to do whatever struck my fancy but thirty in thirty days. I've always been a free former. But as I've gotten older and started to understand the meaning behind different forms of poetry, I fell in love with Tanka.

I know it must be this way
in the waking world,
but how cruel ---
even in my dreams
we hide from others' eyes

-Ono no Komachi, Ink Dark Moon

Tanka is an extended form to Haiku. Where Haiku is five syllables to seven syllables to five (5-7-5) and traditionally in some passing thought of nature. Tanka is in 5-7-5-7-7 and the world/nature element is more abstract. These five lines house two separate poems- the first three lines comprising of the Haiku, then take the third line to the fifth line to read a completely different poem that somehow meshes with the top.

However, the traditional idea behind Haiku hasn't really taken off here in English writings so we tend to write our own version of Haiku. (Like GPS writing about unicorns farting glitter, in my honor no less. Not that my Haiku writing is much better)

Throughout the month, NaPoWriMo issued a challenge a day to help spur you along if you were floundering. Some were quite fun. Some were quite the challenge. And some I couldn't be inspired to do at all. A part of GPS's challenge of the 30 in 30 was they had to be posted publicly. She put hers on the dreaded book of Face. I put mine on Tumblr where less people were likely to see. 

Most of the challenges were different forms of poetry. Or different types of themes. I tried quite a few of them. 

I tried a Pantun- a Malay poem form. Eight to twelve syllables, alternating rhyming lines (abab)- and failed epically.

Wandering in meadows turned sheer darkness

still, shadows move in fractured light
never-ending nights spent dreamless
I am lost to you without sight

©christie taylor, 2013

And a Cinquain- a diamond shaped poem (yet mine never looked that way) with a 2-4-6-8-2 syllable format.

______________________________________

Believed

I was safe

I trusted you

but you were not harmless

because I lost my heart to you

again

©christie taylor, 2013

______________________________________

My take on a Tanka- 5-7-5-7-7 syllable format- which isn't even as close to being as beautiful as a Tanka can be:

©christie taylor, 2013

And a Haiku- 5-7-5 syllable format.

©christie taylor, 2013

And free form... well, that's a whole 'nother story.

I used the month to relearn how to be concise and how to put as much description in a few words as I possibly could. I'd forgotten how much I loved to write poetry. How much I loved when I saw it come together on the page in front of me. The smell of ink blotting and the burn of my fingers from gripping the pen tight. But poetry is emotional and once poetry gets started, it is that thread that keeps unraveling. Thirty days of emotion was almost too heavy of a burden. I poured Cin and Uri into the page. I learned of their relationship and how much longed to be with one another. The agony of being torn apart. For Cin to be trapped away and Uri slow dying of a broken heart. Of a child who's been missing and right in front of them all along. April was an emotional month, but a good month for me.

How about yours?

For more information on National Poetry Writing Month, please visit: napowrimo.net

For more information on Camp NaNo, please visit: campnanowrimo.net

For more information on poetry, please visit: poets.org