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  • Writer's pictureCarrie Etter

NaPoWriMo, Day 9


It's 10:54 p.m. on the ninth day of drafting at least a poem a day, and I've just finished a draft of a short poem juxtaposing the figurative winter of Gorsuch's confirmation to the Supreme Court with a day of the best weather we've had in England this year. I think that's one thing I find interesting about drafting a poem a day: I write not only about what I thought were my current concerns in terms of a manuscript or ideas I've been wrestling with for a while, but also more about what happens day by day in the world.

I began well with the challenge largely because on the first of April, I woke up in Keswick, in the beautiful Lake District. I've found writing there fruitful once before, and fortunately I did so again, partly because I'd stopped myself from writing whenever I felt the impulse for roughly a week before. I arrived teeming and eager.

Though I finished my teaching for the month on Thursday the sixth, I'm still overwhelmed with work through the first week of spring break: I taught poetry workshops in Swindon on Saturday, I'm finishing work for a PhD in creative writing for which I'm the external examiner this Wednesday, and I have a book manuscript consultation I'll finish in the last days of this week. Then, then I'll still be catching up with emails &c., but I should have more time and headspace for drafting new poems in the second half of the month.

How are others tackling the challenge? I'd be glad to hear!

#NationalPoetryMonth #NaPoWriMo #NeilGorsuch

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