April Review and What’s Coming in May

I gave the challenges my all. I showed up every day. I began the month promising acceptance for whatever comes, and then instantly regretted it, because the unexpected came again, and again. There was nothing to do but accept it, and yet that didn’t mean I could help but want to get off the roller-coaster at times. In retrospect, the unexpected inconveniences, and tortures, provided plenty of fuel for the month’s challenges. I never ran out of things to write about.

In my most difficult time this month, I got myself some new magnetic poetry kits_{(assoc link)} to continue writing poetry as a fun game. It helped me out a lot.

Challenging myself to push into the month as a poetry immersive experience made the difference that I wanted. Unlike any other NaPoWriMo, I not only have the poem drafts I published here in response to the prompts, I also have forty unpublished poem drafts typed up in a file.

Visual Art

An entire month away from my mirrorworld. An entire month away from my study of contradictory abstract nouns. I can’t wait to get back to it. But even my favorite passions need a break to be experienced anew. April’s visual arts were collage and kaleidoscopes.

I didn’t glue down any of my collages, only laid the images on a piece of black paper and took a picture. I saved every cut out from each magazine in its own clear plastic envelope. Yesterday, I gathered all the envelopes and dumped their contents on the table with the intent of creating a final, all inclusive collage on the largest canvas I have, but there’s so much, especially text. I may need to make a triptych with the three canvases I have that are the same size. It’s a much larger project than I thought it would be. But it’s fun to have so much pre-chosen and cut out material to play with.

Poetry

I’m really glad I decided to attempt the Portable Poetry MFA _{(assoc link)} along with NaPoWriMo. The readings and assignments contributed to experiencing more connections within the poetic experience. Studying one poem for a whole week while generating draft after draft to different prompts, that poem came into conversation with a combination of prompts and eventually something clicked. When it did, that felt really good. I especially felt it with my poems, “The Cards Dealt Better,” and “Reading the Odyssey for English Lit.”

Tonight is the monthly local poetry reading and open mic at The Postmark Center for the Arts. Thinking of what I would like to read tonight inspired me to read through the poems I posted in April aloud. The seven I chose as possibles for tonight were not ones I had expected. Searching last months efforts for something to read aloud tonight was a fun way to review my poems. I believe I’ll be reading “Proof of the Paranormal,” though there are still hours between now and the reading.

What You May See in May

This morning I looked over what I was doing the last few years in May. Last year I didn’t post much. Guess I needed a break. The year before, I continued daily posts exploring abstract nouns. The year before that I did an extensive study of poetry revision, and took the first poem I wrote for that year’s NaPoWriMo through many different iterations in an eight part series I called Revising Poetry-a Demonstration. I think I’ll take those posts, and rewrite them as a guide for myself, and take some of my poem drafts through the different steps. If I enjoy the results, I may do another series of posts as another demonstration, or I may turn it into a guide book.

I’m in week five of Doug Kearney’s Sharpened Visions Workshop and there’s one more week to go, and after this week, I still have three weeks of my Portable MFA, so I’ll need you to keep me accountable to finish. I’ll continue to post the week in review on Sundays, and what’s to come for the week on Mondays.

Revisiting how excited I was in the May of 2022 after I had chosen abstract nouns for my A to Z Challenge, reminded me how much I enjoy exploring contradictory abstract nouns. I was recently thinking it’s time for me to think about my next Big 5 contradictory abstract nouns for study. The first Big 5 , which I imagined were The Big 5, were: love and apathy; beauty and ugliness; happiness and grief; wisdom and naivete; and truth and fiction. When I was ready to move on, I contemplated five more that would more closely define me, be My Big 5 and these were: Doubt / Certainty; Determination / Reluctance; Creativity / Actuality; Value / Worthlessness; Patience / Impatience. I think this next Big 5 will be abstractions that I feel are the least close to me, give me the knee-jerk reaction that they aren’t part of what defines me, seem distant from me, or are of others. I look forward to seeing what that idea brings for both my writing and art.

I picked up a few books that look fun and exciting to preview and review from NetGalley. (Links are my Amazon associate links):
The Complete Color Harmony by Tina Sutton
The Universe in 100 Colors by Tyler Thrasher & Terry Mudge
The Mushroom Color Atlas by Julie Beeler
Start Here: Draw by Moira Clinch

So you’ll be hearing about what I learn from them and you can look forward to my book reviews along with everything else I’m learning and experiencing as it comes my way.

During all this activity in April, something had to give, and that turned out to be submissions. I had been doing a great job of keeping up a steady stream of submissions this year, but that stopped in April. I plan to get back to it in a big way this May. I want to continue to submit to journals and contests, however, in this age of Submittable, many journal submissions and almost all contests cost money. On a very limited budget, those costs add up quickly. If you have the means, and would like to help me and my poems along the journey to publication, I set up a buy me a coffee account, so you can now buy me a beverage. It will help a lot.

Blogging A to Z Reflections start tomorrow, so come back for a more specific review of all the exciting things I learned from reading Poets & Writers Magazines cover to cover.