A Poem A Day

I have been toying with the idea of starting a poem a day site for the past several months. The original idea was that I would write and publish a new, original poem every day for as long as I could stomach it. Luckily, I was mindful enough to really think it over and not enter into such an immense project impulsively, without fully understanding the possible consequences on my time and my other writing.

After much consideration, I have decided that if I were to try and compose an original poem every day then that would consume a great deal of my daily creative energy, and leave me with little time to work on other projects. Of course, now that I am between projects, it seems feasible. But what happens when I begin my new novel? Then what would I do? Well, I'd spend all my time thinking about the poem I needed to write.

So, what to do?

Well, at first I decided that I should be much less ambitious and post only a poem a week. Well, that seemed too easy. It's just not as challenging, and one of the reasons I wanted to do this was so that I might push myself to be a more prolific poet.

So, what is the middle ground?

The middle ground is to cheat.

I am still going to call this project, A Poem A Day, but I am not going to post any poems on the weekend days. I suppose I could call the project, A Poem A Weekday, but I think we could all agree that it just doesn't offer the same bite. And let's be honest, five original poems a week is still quite an ambitious undertaking. To put the enormity of a project of this size in perspective, if I were to keep this project up for a full year--that is a mighty big if--then I would have to write 260 poems. That is a lot of poems.

Indeed, it is. It still feels too ambitious.

So, I have to figure out another way to cheat.

Lucky for me, I have a backlog of over twenty-five completed, unpublished poems. The first poem I publish online will be the first poem in this already completed backlog. This backlog will act as a sort of insurance policy, just in case I hit a dry spell. This will give me five solid weeks of material as a head start.

I have absolutely no idea how long this project will last. It may continue for several years. It may go for only a few months. I make no promises. All I'll say is that I'm going to make a go at it and hope that it goes long enough that it pushes me creatively, and that some a few readers find joy in my work.

I will post this first poem on Monday.