NaPoWriMo Day 30: Ars Poetica

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Good morning! Today is the last day of NaPoWriMo. How did you do? I don’t expect anyone to have written a poem a day—if you did it, kudos to you and your poetic stamina. I hope these prompts have helped you, and I’m so glad to have been a part, however small, of your poetry journey.

After today, I won’t be in your inbox every morning, but I’ll be emailing you a couple times a month with craft essays and updates. I’d like to write an essay on revision, as I’m sure you’ve got some good drafts from April, and now you’re wondering what to do with them. So be on the lookout for that, and for other craft essays and thoughts I have on the poetic life. I might even put out more prompts here and there. If there’s anything you’d like me to write about, please reply to this newsletter, or email me at [email protected].

I’ll also be keeping you updated on Poemancer itself, though I promise not to spam you. We’re hard at work bringing Poemancer to life, and hope to share more with you this summer.

Finally, if you live in or near New York City, I run a bimonthly poetry workshop for LGBTQ+ poets. If that describes you or someone you know, I’m including details for the May workshops at the end of this newsletter, as well as other opportunities to connect with me.

By the way, I love having poems in my inbox, so if you want to share something you wrote from one of my prompts, please email me!

Enough blabbing—here’s your last prompt of the month.

Table of Contents

• Freewrite

• Poem: “Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish

• Divinations

• Prompt

• Further Connections

Freewrite

With this freewrite, as well as all freewrites, do not put any pressure on yourself to be good. You are simply getting thoughts on the page. You can write in poetry or in prose, but feel free to write poorly, sloppily, redundantly, and with cliches. Now is the time for ideas—we will eventually sculpt those ideas into art.

What is poetry to you? How do you define poetry? What does it mean for a poem to be a poem? Perhaps most importantly, what did you learn about poetry by writing it this past NaPoWriMo?

Freewrite for 8-10 minutes on the nature of poetry itself.

Poem: “Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

Divinations

This is an ars poetica, or a poem about the art of poetry.

I won’t comment too heavily on the poem itself, because I want you to think through each couplet, which are all different truisms about poetry. Do you agree or disagree? Are these definitions limiting or expansive? How does your relationship to poetry agree with MacLeish’s, and how does it diverge?

And, while we’re here… what is poetry? I think every poet defines this throughout their own body of work. No two poets will have the same definition. Moreover, your definition of poetry will evolve the more you engage with it. This is one of those truths that can alienate people from poetry, because it’s so ineffable and has a bit of a pretentious quality to it, but I want you to think of this as something empowering, not alienating—you get to decide what poetry is and how you relate to it.

So, what is your relationship to poetry? Here are a few additional prompts and questions for you. Maybe even journal about these questions, and see what arises.

1. What are some poems that have moved you, shifted your perspective, or moved you deeply?

2. Why did those poems move you deeply? Can you point to experiences within the text that did so? Or was it the overall poem that left you in awe? (Both are possible!)

3. What do those poems have in common? Think about this laterally. If they have entirely different forms, subject matter, and craft elements, zoom out to make those connections. Maybe each poem changed your view of the world, taught you something about yourself, or surprised you at a lyrical or musical level. But there are plenty of other ways a poem can move you—again, journal about it!

4. Think about poems that you’ve written, if you’ve written any. What did you enjoy about the process? What challenged you? Did you feel light afterwards, like something had been untangled in your chest, or perhaps the opposite? How did writing poetry free you? What did it communicate that prose couldn’t?

5. Try defining poetry by defining its opposite. Not prose, which is simply a continuation of language’s possibilities, but the opposite of poetry, which is no poetry. What would language be missing if it didn’t have poetry? What would you be missing if you didn’t have poetry?

Prompt

Write an ars poetica! Write a poem about poetry: what it is, what it means to you, what it can do, what defines its very essence.

Further Connections

Like I said above, I’ll be sending out periodic newsletters with prompts, craft tips, and essays about poetry. I’d love to remain a part of your poetic journey. If you have any suggestions or ideas for these newsletters, please let me know!

Here are some other ways we can stay poetically connected:

Poets Out Loud

I run a bimonthly poetry workshop for LGBTQ+ poets where we read, write, and celebrate queer poetry. We meet physically in Lower Manhattan, NYC. You can join us on the Meetup app, or just show up to an event. In May, we’re meeting here:

• May 3rd

  • The Jefferson Market Library (425 Sixth Avenue), Third Floor, from 2:30-4:30pm

• May 17th

  • Poets House (10 River Terrace), the Stanley Kunitz Room on the Second Floor, from 3:30-5:30pm

Paid Coaching

If you’re interested in working with me one-on-one, I’m available for paid, tailored coaching. We’ll work through what you’re struggling with in your poetic practice and find ways to expand your poetry journey, whether that’s revising poems for publication, putting together a poetry collection, or simply getting involved in a poetic life. Email me at [email protected] if this interests you.

Socials

I’m on Instagram, which I never use, at @glatchkeykid. You can also find all my work, including my published poems and my resources for creative writing, at my website here.

About Poemancer

This newsletter, Poemancer, is the start of a project I’m working on to help poets on their journeys through poetry. We are going to launch a card game poets can use to write their own poetry. The game is printed and protected, we are just now working on finalizing things and launching it into the world. At some point, we will be fundraising for the game, likely through a Kickstarter. I’m so so proud of this project and truly believe it will help poets wherever they are in their journeys. I can’t wait to share it with you.