April Fool Pics and Announcement--Na Po Wri Mo: A Challenge and Commitment

Before I get into the content of this post, here's my favorite April Fool. Don't his eyes look so much better?

 Maybe we'll get round to a haircut sometime soon...

 Happy "April Fools' Day," everyone! Or, as I saw it on a calendar at the laundromat today, "All Fools Day."

Many of the blogs that I enjoy periodically take on and feature a theme or challenge for a certain period of time. Often, it's some sort of culinary challenge like blogging one's way through a particular recipe book, or a fitness challenge like a marathon, bodyrock, or PG90X. I even joined up for Tina's 'Thirty Days of Self Love' last September. A blog is a great accountability tool and means to share insights and goals, setbacks and achievements. There's that feeling of camaraderie, especially if it's a group challenge, and of having an audience, a virtual safety-net as you ride the high wire.

Although I'm definitely doing my best to get in shape for hiking (and generally manic-summer) season, I haven't felt drawn to taking on a 'fitness challenge' in public: partly because it's not the locus of my main passion. And since I'm no kind of recipe follower, passionate foodie/nutritionalist though I am, blogging through a recipe book hasn't yet appealed to me (perhaps one day I'll be blogging my way through writing my own recipe book)!

I am ready for a challenge, though, and a slightly different direction also. Although I knew that April was National Poetry Month and had some plans of my own for that already, I hadn't even heard of Na Po Wri Mo--a counterpart to the more famous NaNoWriMo (I don't love those truncated not-quite-acronyms) until Erin mentioned it earlier this week. The challenge is to write a poem every day of the month, or at least create a new draft of one. You can share them on your blog, or just leave them in the notebook, or carved in rock...

beach boulder with its own native artwork

I'm in! I'm part-thrilled, part-daunted, as I'm already facing a full plate this month. Erin suggested that a benefit she gained from doing the challenge last year was that being required to create a new draft every day mandated thinking outside of the box and encouraged fresh, striking, new ways of thinking. This consideration was a major enticement for me to throw in my lot, although perhaps the fact that I wanted to do it as soon as I heard about it (the way some people feel about running races or climbing challenging rockfaces) is a good index of where my passions lie. I will say that although it's definitely true that generating drafts is a very energetic, thrilling part of the process, I have come to learn that when I'm several drafts into a poem and have really been working with it for some time, that is often the most exciting and compelling, lie-awake-at-night phase of all. So the best dividends may come after April, when the challenge is over and I can start revising!

I'm not going to blog every day, but will stay with my usual rhythm of three-to-four posts per week. I am going to write a poem every day, but I'm not going to post it on here in its entirety (or maybe at all). I don't think it would be fair either to me or to you: getting a draft polished usually takes me more than a single day!

And I will still write about food! Two poems that I'm currently working on are both about aspects of food, and it's been enjoyable to start writing poetically about something I so often write about prosaically.

These julienned beets are an ode to spring coming! I hadn't had beets for months, had almost forgotten how good they are. And they grow so well here. I feel invited to look forward to growing season.

 Together with mashed parsnips with a little miso, coconut, curry powder, with peas stirred in, they have been making life colorful and delicious around here.

What challenge are you taking on this month?
Have a great weekend!