April is national poetry month, a reminder of the importance of poets in human history and culture. We can use it to remember famous poets and those lost to history, read our favorite poems and poetic classics, and write our own poetry. Like National Novel Writing Month for prose writers, National Poetry Month can be a way to keep yourself writing every day.
Daily Poems
Writing a poem a day is the perfect way to celebrate National Poetry Month. Many poets prepare the themes or prompts for their daily poems before the month starts to avoid writer's block over the month. This ensures you always have something to fall back on for inspiration.
You can get these prompts from anywhere. Many people create and share their own collection of prompts, which often have a connecting theme. You can find these collections on Instagram writing accounts and other writing groups. A simple Google search for poetry prompts will get you many websites with a long list of prompts to choose from. And if you want to really challenge yourself, you can also create your own prompt collection from your imagination. If you do this, consider sharing it with other writers and poets, so they can use your prompts for inspiration.
Escapril
While poets have been writing a poem a day throughout April for decades, Escapril is a relatively new term by Savannah Brown. She runs an Instagram account with prompts for every day of April. Take a look at them to see if they trigger your imagination!
Mental Health
Writing every day is hard—and sometimes seemingly impossible. But it can be done. It requires motivation, effort, and moderation. The important thing to remember is: don’t burn yourself out. If you’re unable to respond to the prompt you assigned to a day, try another one. If you can’t get past a few lines, write a short poem. Writing a haiku still counts as writing. And if you do decide that you cannot write anything one day, that’s okay. It’s better to skip one day than find yourself unable to write anything good for the next two weeks. What matters is that you try.
National Poetry Month is called Escapril because poetry can allow you to escape, but if it begins to feel like something you want to escape, you’re experiencing burn out. This is supposed to be a fun activity. Keep it that way.
So, if you’re a poet or want to be, Happy National Poetry Month!
Will you be doing anything for National Poetry Month? Let me know in the comments.