Is it getting to be a bit much, what with flu recovery and all? Maybe…maybe a little bit.
Welcome to the Century Poetry Workshop
where getting it right never precludes
getting it done. While you're here you'll
experience the ups, downs of any lesser
program, but here you'll get to do so,
again, and again, and again, and...
again. Our founder realized the old
adage, "If at first you don't succeed..."
carried within it the implication
that succeeding meant you could stop.
Reasoning this didn't reflect real life,
he instilled in us the belief that
getting it right deserves a pat on
your back and a well-deserved
feeling of accomplishment which
should last until tomorrow, when it
vanishes, just like it does for any
baseball player who experiences
a victory in a late July game. And
don't worry about "How will I
ever keep this up?" We've got you!
Our patented Stage of Global
Failure will make sure billions
have access to your daily task
to produce yet another poem.
Please note your publishing
platform has parameters in
place to reject one and two-lined
poems and frivolous limericks,
haiku, clerihews, and the like.
We're not making THAT mistake
again. (Also, shame parameters
have been increased for putting
such drivel online.) When you
'graduate' this program, a
century of verse under your
literary belt, you'll know you've
accomplished something! Will
you be able to call it literature?
That's up to you—we highly
recommend it, because how else
will you justify those daily doses of
depression to 'write just one more?'
Remember, as with any task like
mopping your kitchen floor, you
only get out of it what you put in!
So keep up the good work, avoid
those haunted eyes of the near-
graduates, and go write a poem!
95/100
100 poems in 100 days
(I can smell the finish line…)
Oh, I NEEDED this poem. I’m finding myself not sprinting toward the finish line, but rather limping, like “can I really do this?” Found myself saying last week, “you know, a 90 day challenge still sounds good?” But we are ALMOST THERE!
My favorite line from this one:
“That’s up to you—we highly
recommend it, because how else
will you justify those daily doses of
depression to ‘write just one more?'”
Made me almost spit out my coffee.
And I laughed out loud at the 90-day challenge! I absolutely cannot believe that I actually wrote TWO poems per day to catch up to your pace at the beginning. (I started late.)
I can’t either! My husband told me last night “why don’t you just write the rest of them tomorrow and be done with it.” Ummm…not how my brain works. I sure wish I could write faster and better, but I do think a few of these 100 poems are good. It’s hard to see the forest for the trees, as they say. Will be interesting to do a recap next week and reread some of these to see what I think of it all.
Actually, I I have written ahead. I wrote half of today’s yesterday (“blue”) and I’ve written #99 already on day 98. I’ve got the topic for 100 in mind also. I’ll confess, I’m also thinking of a silly poem for Day 101! Probably too silly.
Wow! You know, not one time did I write ahead. Not in the entire 100 days. I always thought I would, but it just never happened. I barely made the daily ones work. Headed over to read your last poems in a moment! Can’t wait.
I always have ideas, concepts, observations just bubbling up. The poetry challenge gave me a focal point. Where I would let most ideas drift away (and still do), I would instead grab a pen and jot a couple lines. Sitting down to write the poem became easier because the germ already existed.
Same, but I don’t always let those ideas stay too long because I get so busy they are swept away. This made me have to jot them down before life swallowed them up. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m already kind of missing the daily poetry. I need to focus on energy for a few weeks on other things that have fallen behind, but I want to get right back to it soon.
The joy of being retired. And frankly, of being sick. No expectations.