Calling all poets! April is National Poetry Writing Month -- NaPoWriMo for short. Modeled after National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), NaPoWriMo is an annual project encouraging poets to write one poem each day in April.

NaPoWriMo

We love discovering poetry in the Reader and are proud of the poets who call WordPress.com their online home, like Pushcart-nominated poet Kellie Elmore. If you're an established or aspiring poet, or want to dabble in free verse, lyric essays, and more experimental prose, we encourage you to participate this month.

A poem a day

First time participating in a post-a-day project like this? We asked poet and publisher Maureen Thorson, the founder of this project, for advice:

Be open to the possibilities. The point isn't to turn out a fully formed sonnet each day -- although if anyone wants to try, I'm not going to discourage them! The point is to just get something down on the page without worrying about doing it "right." Many people, including published poets, avoid writing because their inner editor keeps saying, "oh, that's not good" or "you're not taking this seriously." But then you end up writing nothing at all.

I'd suggest that people "let go" of any preconceived notions of what poems have to look like or be about. A poem can rhyme, or not. It can be in a traditional form, or not. It can be about something like love or death, or . . . it could be about how much you like the smell of new erasers. Again, this project is more about getting words down than on making sure they're perfect. You can always edit later -- like in May!

Ready to participate?

For more inspiration, visit the NaPoWriMo website throughout the month -- Maureen posts daily prompts to give you an extra boost.

NaPoWriMoTag your poems with NaPoWriMo so other participants and the rest of the WordPress.com community can find your posts in the Reader. We're excited to follow along and will share our favorites at the end of the month.

It's day one of your challenge. Onward!