History of National Poetry Writing Month
National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a creative writing project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a poem each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada.
NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.
This website is owned and operated by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month), she started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.
My History with National Poetry Writing Month
I started writing poetry in 1988 after I had been exposed to T.S. Elliot in my honors English class in high school. In 1992 I started reading my poetry publicly at Espesso Europia Coffee Shop in Abilene Tx while I was in the United States Air Force. This continued for many years when I ran my own poetry reading at Cannova's in Loves Park Illinois and attended the poetry slams at The green Mill in Chicago Illinois. While living in Rockford Illinois I published my first book of poetry Throwing Yourself at the Ground and Missing in 2007 followed by Postcards From Someone You Don't Know in 2008 Wisdom From the Sack in 2010 and Shaving Crop Circles In My Chest Hair in 2017. You can get copies of all of these books in my merch section. In 2009 I started participating in National Poetry Writing Month which became the basis for my book Wisdom From the Sack and Shaving Crop Circles in My Chest Hair. In 2020 I started publishing my podcast version of the challenge and those can be viewed here for 2020 and here for 2021.
April 10th Poetry Prompt
Today’s (optional) prompt is pretty simple – a love poem!
April 10th Poem
The Spiderman is Having You for Dinner Tonight
10 April 2022
It was another cold winter back in the Midwest
She took what she wanted
Another notch on her bedpost
And as she was my first
I gave it freely in her parent's basement
After work we met
And as we commenced, I saw a poster on the wall
It was of the band who she had playing on the record
And when the words came through my copulation fog
I bit down on her neck
And exploded inside
As I looked at the drummer with lust in my eyes
Silently saying you wish you were here don’t you
As the lullaby played that night
My next foray where I explored this emotion
Came from another man who was more than most could take
He was kind and gentle and gave me an out
To define myself that I could accept
He did derive pleasure from my loins
But knew that this would never last
It was in the days of don’t Ask
So, we didn’t tell
Until years later when some were treated to a seat at the table
And right after my tryst with him came another woman
