Day Fifteen

Hello, everyone! We’re halfway through NaPoWriMo. Congratulations to all who have made it this far.

Our featured participant today is Inktuition, where the dialogue poem for Day 14 retraces a conversation every writer has with him or herself probably about twenty times a day. Hopefully, NaPoWriMo is helping you all to overcome the “fear” part of your internal writing dialogue!

Today’s poetry resource answers the question you may not have known you had: What is a Chapbook? I’ll let you read more at the link, but in brief, a chapbook is a collection of poems – but one that is much shorter than the typical 48-60 pages of a full-length collection. 15-25 pages is typical. There are many small presses that specialize in publishing them, often in handmade editions. They can be a great way to get your poetry in front of your audience before you’ve built up the reputation and credibility that would lead a publisher to take a chance on a full-length collection. Plus, they’re fun to trade and collect! (Think of them as the Pokemon of poetry — “Chapbook, I choose you!”)

And now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today, I challenge you to write a poem that addresses itself or some aspect of its self (i.e. “Dear Poem,” or “what are my quatrains up to?”; “Couplet, come with me . . .”) This might seem a little meta at first, or even kind of cheesy. But it can be a great way of interrogating (or at least, asking polite questions) of your own writing process and the motivations you have for writing, and the motivations you ascribe to your readers.

Happy writing!