So this year I was able to do the napowrimo challenge last month in which I wrote one poem a day and posted it to my blog. For information about what Napowrimo is and where I got my prompts, here is the link: https://www.napowrimo.net/

I wasn’t able to do the challenge last year because I was in Peru and well, I was too busy enjoying my vacation to think about the challenge.

I did do the challenge in 2022 and I can definitely tell a difference in my poetry from that year to this year.
Here’s that blog post: https://wordpress.com/post/lifeonthebpd.com/3708
So a few things I have noticed in my poetry this year is I’ve gotten stronger in using imagery, my vocabulary is way better and I’ve even written some funny stuff.
Here’s one inspired by Yung Gravy that I loved and read at open mic:

Another thing I noticed is that I’m getting better at telling a story through my poetry and here’s an example of this, this one is also one of my most vulnerable poems that I loved:

I will admit that not all of my poems were “good poems” and I’ll also admit that there were some days that it was hard to stay on task doing this daily since I do work 60 hour weeks but my discipline and determination won and even on the hardest and busiest of days, I still manage to write and post a poem. Also, I was determined to use the prompts from the napowrimo site and at times those prompts were challenging. However, I still used those prompts to the best of my ability. Also, when I did the challenge in 2022 I said something about turning off my internal editor and writing the poem and posting it right away. While I did turn off my internal editor (somewhat) when I wrote the first draft of the poem, I actually edited that first draft after I wrote it. I wrote a second draft in my journal and that’s what I posted in my blog. This shows I’m growing as a writer as I’m editing and paying more attention to what I post. I think one of the major reasons I’ve grown as a writer is because I’ve found community with other poets online and in real life. One thing I thought a lot about as I was doing this challenge was my audience. My friend Alex (another poet) told me that when he writes his poetry, he thinks about how it will sound while reading it to an audience and that really stuck with me. I know I’ve said so many times, “I write for myself primarily” and while that is still true, I think that in order for me to build community I need to also think about my audience and my readers. I don’t think this takes away from my authenticity at all; I think I’m just growing as a writer who aims to become better.

My advice to anyone who’s thinking about doing the challenge next year is do it for yourself and be gentle with yourself. Understand you don’t have to post it if you don’t want to and use any prompts available on the internet. As I look into doing this challenge this year, I’m thinking of making my own prompts in Spanish and English for anyone interested in doing the challenge.
I hope that next April when God willing I do the napowrimo challenge again I’m better at my craft and I can inspire some of my fellow poets to do the challenge with me.