30 Poems in 30 Days
September 4, 2007 by J.C. Hewitt
I would like to announce a new project called 30 Poems in 30 Days. I hope it will serve as a sort of eLearning experience for poets and aspiring poets. Every day I will discuss a poetry-related concept and give out a poetry assignment along with a recommended poet to read. All of the poets I will recommend are working in the field today. There will be no Coleridge or Whitman to sample here. We will look to the present instead.
This series of posts has two goals. The first is to teach you a little about poetry and give you some things to think about. The second is to give you enough potential material to publish your own book of poetry. Thirty poems are enough to create a small book of poetry. At the end of the thirty days, I will discuss at least three low-cost ways to publish your own book of poetry.
30 Poems in 30 Days works best if you take the time to post your poems and comments in the comment section of the page. If you are worried about copyrights — don’t be. Publishing a poem online is one of the best ways to establish a copyright because it sets a specific date of publication. I happily state here that you reserve the rights to republish/reprint any of your own work that you choose to publish here. If you choose not to publish here, I understand, but I think you will be missing out on a great potential benefit as well as the opportunity to share your work with an audience.
As for comments, please stay constructive and respectful. Insulting another person’s poem adds nothing to the process. If you have an idea for improvement, feel free to express it in a polite and constructive way.
Thanks in advance to everyone who chooses to participate!
[...] This is Day 1 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
In the morning, we patted mud on bricks
with little chubby fingers,
filling all the cracks and
crevasses with sweet wet earth.
The leaves on the locust trees
shook and spoke like old women
gossiping over our heads
while the mud dried.
Our cakes never made, never rose and
by evening the mud had dried and cracked
with all the hard brick beneath showing through.
In the morning, we patted mud on bricks.
this is beautiul! very organic and vibrant.
Thanks so much! You should post a poem as well! Actually I posted on the wrong page. If you click the “Why Should You Write Poetry” link it takes you to the assignment page.
Thanks again for your kind comments.
i only speak the truth! I actually posted one. please let me know what you think.
[...] yet even begun to tap the depths of. They’ve just announced a new project called, yes, 30 Poems in 30 Days. Every day I will discuss a poetry-related concept and give out a poetry assignment along with a [...]
Laura, I remember patted mud cakes mixed with a little flour and sugar my grandmother donated; my cakes still don’t rise, but I keep on baking, and John, I feel the scar throbbing . . . I love the way poetry means what it means to the poet and means what it means to the reader . . . . When I teach poetry I don’t try to assign meaning . . . I want my students to discover it.
Laura that is truly a magnificent poem. It took me back…. Thank you.
I found the day two assignment, then it disappeared. I’m having a little trouble navigating. I find a comment page and a poetry page. If I remember the second assignment, it was supposed to be about self in the now, keeping a personal perspective and involvement in the poem. The comments are great, the poetry outstanding. Jim, interestingly I am working on a review of “Galvanized.” He’s a guy’s poet as I know it. Certainly the mechanical technicality of his language and subject meditations lean toward the masculine gender. — Connie
Here is my Poem No. II:
I am full of family
Climbing into a big bed at night
No longer alone, drifting into dreams
Cuddled around a warm rock
No need to draw the blankets tight
Around my neck to scare away the cold
Dragon Fire shelters me in his wings
I crochet blankets, paint walls, walk the dog
Followed by a gray cat
Poetry flashes behind the trees and freezes
A meadow lark on the lawn, yellow breasted
And fawn, while gliding hawks circle above
The sidewalk buckels and bends from old tree roots
I count my friends nearby on two fingers, by the
Hundreds from away from here, this is not a really a town
It is a migrant work camp, we are living on leftovers
From another era, pretending to be real while brick
Streets gather dust and the downtown clock tolls
For the no-thing that never happens here, the noon whistle from
The closed compress has ceased to blow it’s steamy breath
For the lunch hour rush, but the bell tower at the
Church still sings about a birth that is only curious to me
The dragon wants to take me away, into real life, my heart thumps
Deeply, from hunger and from fear, when I paint canvasses
And take photographs and grow herbs I am happy
I can say more than words can tell
Only last week I carried ten years of bear fear into the mountains
I told the story, about my heart eaten by fear
About smelling the bear smelling me smelling her
What is the lesson I asked
The Shaman said maybe the bear was just telling me to hibernate
No wonder I am afraid I said
That night I slept and dreamed of: writing music
Dipping my brush into color, not thinking about bear
I am not my body
I am a labrynth of evergreen hedges
Hiding a garden of rosie crosses. Petal by petal
I have grown me from a eager bud into
Full bloom
cw 8/14/07
Poem No. III – news inspired political comment
It doesn’t matter
They cut off the water for drilling in Nevada
Engineers will just truck it in
Imagine, a nuclear waste dump den
Underground, waiting for the right fault to shift
Waiting, quietly, in time to be forgotten
Like land mines in the middle east drift
Sleeping giants slumbering in mock peace
Nuclear Waste dumps surround us, don’t ask
Don’t tell, the trucks pass me on the highway
The news reports only cover long distance rifts
They are building new highways here, for trade they say
While less than 60 miles lumbering trucks part the night
They dump and spin the facts for the right under our nose
Profiteers in small towns get taken by big city brokers that hose
The dumb minded that stayed behind holding the power to
Wash away the wise, the intellectual with daddy’s money
Made by Buffalo Hunters, clod hoppers, cows,
And pools of black gold
cw 9/07/07
I’m posting this a second time, Poem No. II
I am full of family
Climbing into a big bed at night
Not alone, drifting into dreams
Cuddled around a warm rock
No need to draw the blankets tight
Around my neck to scare away the cold
Dragon Fire shelters me in his wings
I crochet blankets, paint walls, walk the dog
Followed by a gray cat
Poetry flashes behind the trees and freezes
A meadow lark on the lawn, yellow breasted
And fawn, while gliding hawks circle above
The sidewalk buckles and bends from old tree roots
I count my friends nearby on two fingers, by the
Hundreds from away from here, this is not really a town
It is a migrant work camp, we are living on leftovers
From another era, pretending to be real while brick
Streets gather dust and the downtown clock tolls
For the nothing that never happens here, the noon whistle from
The closed compress has ceased to blow it’s steamy breath
For the lunch hour no-rush, but the bell tower at the
Church still sings about a birth that means nothing to me
The dragon wants to take me away, into real life, my heart thumps
Deeply, from hunger and from fear, when I paint canvasses
And take photographs and grow herbs I am happy
I can say more than words can tell
Two weeks ago I carried ten years of bear fear into the mountains
I told the story, about my heart eaten by fear
About smelling the bear smelling me smelling her
What is the lesson I asked
the Shaman said maybe the bear was just telling me to hibernate
No wonder I am afraid I said
That night I slept and dreamed of writing music and
Dipping my brush into color, not thinking about bear
I am not my body
I am a labyrinth of evergreen hedges
Hiding a garden of rosie crosses, petal by petal
I have grown me from a eager bud into
Full bloom
cw 8/14/07
[...] This is Day 5 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
[...] This is Day 6 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
[...] This is Day 7 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
Connie, glad to catch up here with your Days 2 and 3. Your political poem is excellent, and needs no background information to be perfectly clear – and your second piece is just plain magnificent!
[...] This is Day 8 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
[...] This is Day 9 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
[...] This is Day 9 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
[...] This is Day 13 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
[...] This is Day 13 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
[...] This is Day 12 of 30 Poems in 30 Days [...]
I have many poems to share but just really found out about this too late, I’m a little upset that I didn’t look here ’till three days ago but hopefully there will be other things like this in the near future. I LOVE THIS SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Art
Art has no boundaries
No lines to pass
It’s an open field
With rainbow grass
There are no rules
No objects to apply
Just wisdom and knowledge
And experiences to fly
Your mind goes on
All love goes free
Your body and soul
It’s where you’re meant to be
Friends and family
Will never be apart
They dance on your page
A white canvas of art
I love everyone’s poems! This one I wrote about how I feel about art. I’m going to try and catch up with everyone in the poems.
Thanks for the 30 Poems in 30 Days. I followed along diligently on my MySpace site(under the name SatyaPriya) and am well on my way to a verse novel, I think, a short one. Thanks, and I hope you do this again, or at least post weekly assignments.
Helen
Helen,
I agree!!!
Day one of 30 Poems in 30 Days. Here we go…
Lost and found
I dreamed of it, gulping images
of snowbound cottages and wind-blown
frozen blocks of hair: the library
on the hill I struggled to reach,
the smell inside of aging paper
brown as dried apples, the quiet
turning of pages soft as the gentle
dipping of waves over black sand.
I was stranded – or so I thought,
until I emerged to find myself
drinking the bluest deepest heaven
through my pores, overlooking a valley
so pungently green it cleansed
my eyes to see it, and the village
with its church steeple like the
ones I had seen in Alsace years ago,
when it all began to fade, grow
thick and soupy as it blurred out
of focus and I held tight, tight
to the dream as my eyes forced
me out of this world, daylight
forceps grabbing me, prying me
from the most wild and pure magic
I had ever known.
Hi Lisa,
thank you for taking on the project. Good luck. I look forward to reading more of your poetry. You are certainly off to a good start.
Thanks John, I appreciate it. I’m not sure how this is supposed to work? Am I supposed to post my new poems, every day?
Incidentally, here is today’s poem.
California fires
You see a house
not a house really
but the picture
of a house
not really the picture
of a house but an image
of a house
The house is burning
the picture is alive
the image cannot burn
but the house spits flame
and black smoke pours
from every window
as if it had always
been there
always lived in those
rooms
silent
holding its black ash
breath, waiting
for the moment
of its freedom, its
fifteen minutes
of fame
the mountain has thousands
of houses like this
it is not alone
there is nothing unique
about this fire
thousands of spitting
flames
thousands of houses
releasing smoke from
its secret captivity
only the mountain understands
that the piles of
soft ash and new mountains
of unanswered debris
are still alive as they
smolder and the picture
of the black smoking pile
that was a house
is a picture of a new house
a burnt house a house
made of spat-out dreams
in the summer night
The whisk of a dragon kite
Battering against the wind
Defining the rule of seradipity
Soaring to deliviate reason
Caught in the moment to retreival
Gravity caught by the winds placid hands
Kite surrendering freedom to express time
I had joined this group a long time ago and then the leader quit. I was never notified that the group restarted and I do wishe to participate. Please contact me ZHaul! Thanks, butterflyzrfree.