Weekly Poetry Deadlines

There are lots of reasons not to write, especially with a baby. Projectile poop, which turns out to be a real thing, distracts from the beauty of language and the romance of writing. Since I spent almost the entire pregnancy exhausted and poem-less, I really wanted to break the dry spell and find reasons to write again.

A poet-friend challenged me to exchange new poems with her weekly. This looming deadline has helped to motivate me to read poetry, think about new lines and finally write and share the end product with her. After all, who wants to admit defeat to a friend? And who wants to stop writing once and for all?

Writing isn’t only the quiet time I spend in front of the computer screen. It is also the time I spend thinking about lines, images and ideas as I finish the baby’s daily laundry, clean his bottles, and finish other chores. (No, I’m not only writing about baby-safe laundry detergent.) Getting into the habit, or rather getting back into the habit, of mentally existing in search of a poem makes it possible to write again.

One draft of a new poem a week isn’t a lot, especially since there aren’t always salvageable lines or ideas in the drafts. But it is important to write and keep my mind in that world, even now. Or perhaps especially now.

When I’m with my baby, my attention is on him. And sometimes that attention includes talking to him about poetry. I read him my drafts, lines that persist in my head and published poems from his growing library. The rhythm and rhyme in many of his books has made me think differently about language and voice. Without the deadline, I might not have remembered to look for poetry daily.

Thank you to my friend for the encouragement and the excitement of reading her new weekly poem.