PAD Done

The PAD Challenge is over, done, finished. I made it. I wrote a poem for each prompt. That was my goal. Just write and submit one poem, every day.

I’m not saying every poem was my best. I got stuck on several prompts; simple hated some of Brewer’s prompts. I had a few chaotic weekends that almost sidetracked me. Life often didn’t co-operate, but you know, I think that was part of the point or lesson to be learned. Mine, anyway.

A twist on my own motto: Save yourself. Write anyway, I guess. See, I had to write regardless. It didn’t matter that I didn’t like the prompt for Day 8 or really didn’t want to go there with Day 9’s prompt. I had to write a poem-condense the chosen subject, find a place to start, begin and do.

I treated the month long challenge as I do NaNoWriMo month. I wrote. I got that poem done. Not Shakespeare, but a poem I could at least bear to have online for anyone to see. And so it went day by day. Some days I was ashamed of my efforts, cringed to put my work online.

For one thing everyone else’s poems were so good. Funny thing though, mine weren’t so bad and the prompts I hated most usually produced the best results from me. So, though I sometimes hated the process, the difficulty, I loved the result.

National Poetry Month was more than the PAD Challenge though. For me. I had decided to honor the month by reading poetry every day, carry a pocket poem each day, and do the PAD Challenge. I knew the Challenge would be hard, but I didn’t realize how much time I’d have to spend to do justice to it and myself.

Regrets—Yes. Oh, I will do the PAD Challenge next year for certain. I have produced the best work this last month as I have in a good long time—Poetry, essays and short stories, but I haven’t had time to complete them or get them out into the world because of time constraints. (April is also the beginning of spring—I wait for it all winter. Gardening begins and you’re not going to keep me out of the dirty or away from the garden centers.)

I didn’t carry a pocket poem with me—not one day. I regret that, because I wanted to leave a poem somewhere each day, thereby introducing poetry to who knows who. I’m going to try to do that next year and prepare for that by ‘collecting’ thirty poems through the year, typing them onto the computer in preparation. Next year all I’ll need to do is print them up, put them on cardstock and carry one with me each day. I only need to find three poems a month that I love. Doable.

To prepare for the PAD Challenge, I’m going to practice this next year—writing poetry. And I’ll gather words and ideas into a PAD file. With that and Robert Lee Brewer’s prompts, I expect to write better poems for next year’s challenge.

I do think the PAD challenge helpful for any writer—fiction, nonfiction, or poetry writer alike. We all need that kick in the pants, a challenge, a change, some fun some time. Put this on your calendar for next April and challenge yourself.