5.01.2010

Confession Saturday: April Is Poetry Month Wrap-up Edition

I confess:

~ I am happy to announce the two winners of the Poetry Book Giveaway here at Both Fires. My friend and fellow South-of-the-River resident, Sarah K, will receive a copy of Denise Levertov's Selected Poems; and Sam will receive a trio of three books from the Laurel Poetry Collective: Tom Ruud's Unable For the World to Sleep, Deborah Keenan's Kingdoms, and Su Smallen's Weight of Light. Congratulations to Sarah and Sam, and thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway.

~ I used the random number generator at random.org to select the winning comment numbers, but can't for the life of me figure out how to embed a screenshot of the winning numbers in this blog post. Sorry, I'm just a Powit, not a computer whiz.

~ I did not write a poem a day for NaPoWriMo, but I did write sixteen poems during the month of April. That's more than my usual productivity level by far.

~ Submitting to two contests this month (both with 4/30 deadlines) just about did me in. I confess, I no longer have the stamina I had at 18 or 25 (I would say "or at 30" but, sadly, my stamina was long gone by then). Then again, I didn't have nearly as many children then as I do now. The exercise of pulling poems together and sending them out was enough of a win for me. I really enjoyed it.

~ Even though I'm poetry-exhausted and thought I wouldn't write another poem for at least a week and maybe six months, another draft made its way onto paper this morning. I confess, I love the Muse.

~ I'm also happy to announce that my source at Laurel Poetry Collective gave me some of their overstock, so I have several consolation prizes to send out to people that are not Sarah K or Sam. I'll be continuing to draw names over the next few weeks and will send the additional books out as I go. So, good luck, again!

~ I confess, I almost hate to tell you this but......... May is --wait for it-- Arthritis Month. What do you think, should I try for an ache a day? I confess, if I weren't laughing about this, I'd be crying.

~ I confess, I have spent entirely too much time inside writing poems lately. I'm going outside to play with my kids. Happy May Day, all.

4 comments:

Valerie said...

Seems like you did get a lot accomplished this month!

congrats to the winners of your give-away!

CitricSugar said...

Sixteen poems is quite an accomplishment!!

I think there is infinite opportunity for letting arthritis know who's boss this month and relating the realities... I saw a fundraising advert for cancer (April, of course) that made me giggle. It was picture of lockers in a school hallway and read: "Better watch your back, cancer. We know a lot of people..."

Dana L. Dillon said...

May is also Mental Health Month. I will probably write something about it soon!

Minga said...

Every month has something to celebrate, something to raise awareness about and something to just wonder about. In schools we celebrated Black History Month, Women's History Month, Reading Month, Physical Fitness . . . and on and on. In April you were successful in keeping us all focused on the wonder and awe of poetry. Perhaps this month your readers can celebrate with you your progress dealing with this challenge of arthritis, learn some about how to support those we know who deal with it, and join you and your family in wondering why?