I haven’t been posting here as much as I mean to because my days seem very routine lately, but in a very good way. It’s Poetry Month, perhaps my favorite month of all, and perhaps the most challenging of months because I slap this extra task each day on my head like an old-school Big Red gum wrapper that says I must write one new poem each day. It’s exhausting and yet it is the one thing I’m most proud of accomplishing at the end of the day.

I haven’t been writing any fiction lately, but I’ve been wholeheartedly delighted to explore storytelling, my thoughts and obsessions, and language in my play with poetry. To me, April is my sandbox and I can kick down and smooth out and build up sand structure after sand structure with all of the architectural creativity I can imagine. Note: Writing everyday is a great way to find out what your subconscious obsessions are.  Perhaps the most exciting thing is that I have created a poetry exchange this entire month with several writerly friends in my cohort this month. Sharing work can be extremely difficult, especially if the work is personal in any way (and it always is, one way or another). And yet, I feel an immense sense of trust and admiration for my poetic confidantes, due to these daily correspondences over our work.

This poetry month (the fourth one I’ve actively participated in) is especially exhilarating because of where I am geographically. Each April, the city of Montpelier waxes poetic, and in fact changes its name (unofficially) to Poem City. Over 400 poems cover the windows of downtown establishments as part of a “walkable anthology.” Buying groceries? Walking to work? Catching a movie at the Savoy? Picking up meds at the pharmacy? Wherever you need to go, a poem is there, waiting for you. In addition to the poems, events are held every night in various reading spaces, featuring local Vermont and New England poets. I’m still thinking about the event I went to: a poetry/music mash-up performance by the group Los Lorcas (comprised of poets Partridge Boswell and Peter Money and guitarist Nat Williams). In the spirit of Federico Garcia Lorca, the performers fused spoken word with song in an eclectic variety of pieces, ranging from blues, rock, folk, jazz. Thanks to Peter Money, I also learned what a drone poem is. (Hint: where the narrator’s point of view is that of a drone hovering over a city, seeing life lived in little pockets of individuality below).