Posted by deborah

Thanks for stopping by! If you're new here and want to keep up on poetry and 32 Poems, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed.

Diane Lockward gave me the idea for a Day of Poetry. After reading about hers, I immediately set about organizing my own. Aren’t blogs and listservs and poetry community great? She borrowed my idea of a literary festival — I think — and I borrowed her Day of Poetry idea. I love how we all riff on each other’s ideas.

Our Day of Poetry began about 10 am. Poet 1 showed up and we chatted for quite some time. Poet 2 showed up. I got everyone their coffee or tea. Poet 3 showed up. Not too long after Poet 3 arrived, we began with the first prompt.

Our agenda was that we’d chat a bit, write two prompts, break for lunch and then write in response to two more prompts. I did have my doubts about creating in a group. Beforehand, I wondered if I’d even be able to write a word with other poets around busily writing their own drafts.

I allowed 20 minutes for each prompt — except one time I got carried away and went a few minutes over — and kept track with my cell phone clock. Everyone brought prompts. One person brought four.

During the third prompt, my mind began to play tricks on me and every small noise took on more importance than necessary. I could hear pens scratching, a car door slamming, a cat meowing somewhere, and wasn’t that reason enough to stop writing? I pressed on.

After the second prompt, the four of us broke for a lunch of Portuguese kale soup, gingery sweet potato soup, and ajvar and Serbian cheese with bread. For dessert, we had oat strawberry crisp. Yeah, it was all homemade thankyouverymuch.

In the afternoon, we wrote two more prompts. This was made harder, in part, by a full stomach and a sunny afternoon that always makes me desire naps.

Writing in a group that way was enjoyable for me, and I’ll gladly do it again at some point. I felt good taking time for poetry and getting to know some DC-area poets better. Community is important to me, and community with poets is very important. In this case ‘very’ is not the least ‘very’ word.

After all of that socializing and creativity and other life changes happening, I’m up for a quiet Friday evening. I look forward to putting the girl to bed, sitting back with a book or knitting and taking it easy.