April is National Poetry Month. I discovered this a couple years ago when a number of my blogging friends began participating in NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, during which some hardy and/or foolish souls commit to writing and posting a new poem every day in April.

At first I hated this. For one thing, I hated the name, that ungodly string of capital and small letters -- not even original, but filched from its big brother, the November novel writing thing, NaNoWriMo. Was that any way for poets to treat their language?

Second, all my poetry-writing and -reading instincts revolted. Poetry on the assembly line? The whole point of poetry is that it's lovingly crafted, not slapped together. Oh, everyone has luck sometimes, a poem that comes out, first time, exactly right, but most good poems are worked, over days or weeks or years. What's the good of churning out a whole slew of raw, or at best half-cooked, poems?

And finally, it upset my blog-reading habits. I follow dozens of bloggers. Most of them post a couple times a week. Those who write poetry -- a minority -- might post three or four poems a month. I can keep up with that, but just barely. I'm a slow reader of poetry. I often have to read through a poem a couple times before I have any confidence that I know what's going on in it. I can read ten prose posts in the time I devote to a poetry post.

When NaPoWriMo first forced itself on my attention, it wrecked my reading routine. Suddenly I had a dozen or more poems to read every day -- poems by my friends, poems I felt I really ought to respond to. For the first week of the first April I tried. I hoped it was a flash in the pan. Surely people would stumble and give up? But mostly they didn't. They soldiered on. I started falling behind. And eventually, I just took to skipping. Some days I saw a poem, and I just went on by. I was grateful for May, when it finally came.

But everyone who did it seemed pretty pumped by it, and the interesting thing was that the poems were not bad. There were a few bad ones, but then there always are. There were more awkward and clumsy bits, transitions that didn't quite work, a few more obviously lame lines, but the overall quality was surprisingly good. A lot of the best bits, apparently, do come straight out of the first firing that way. And the really interesting thing was that people were writing differently. The were writing poems of sorts they'd never tried before -- out of sheer desperation, I guess.

So I'm grudgingly reconciled with NaPoWriMo. I've already steeled myself to skip some of my friends' poems, when they're coming too thick and fast. And I even am tempted to participate myself. Who knows what might happen, if I knocked that many poems out of my head that fast?

Once you reach a certain age, it's inevitable that you will come down with a serious bout of nostalgia now and then. Nostalgia

is defined by our ten-year-old, hardback Encarta Dictionary as a "sentimental recollection, a mixed feeling of happiness, sadness, and longing when recalling a person, place, or event from the past, or the past in general."  

Many of us feel nostalgia, particularly when we realize that an ordinary object from our past, one that was commonly found or commonly used by many people, even whole populations, no longer exists in that particular form.

Following is a poem (which we found in Rattle #31, Summer 2009) that addresses nostalgia for an item that most young people today, chatting and texting on their cell phones, have only heard about from their parents, read about in books or seen in movies:

Don't You Miss The Phone Booth
by Kate Peper

-- a place where once you closed that hinged door
you could still look out, but now the outside world
was hushed and you were in a capsule of privacy?
The etchings of phone numbers, names and expletives
cheering you while you listened to that dial tone,
thinking, grandly, how connected you were
to those who came before you in this one booth.
And wasn't it comforting, too, to feel the heft and solidity

of the phone book or rub the cigarette burns on that little corner    table?

[Note: The editor apologizes for the formatting limitations that do not allow for indentation of long lines.] 

This poem works so well because Ms. Peper places the phone booth in the context of its time, and because she details the settings so well, you can place yourself within that phone booth, and feel the speaker's longings not only for the item itself, but for the simpler places and times in which this booth was a common feature of the landscape.  

Many of us are old enough to remember the phone booth, to identify with all the details and feelings Peper describes, but even those who are too young to remember would most likely understand her nostalgia for this once very common feature of the American landscape. Her nostalgia also allows her to make statements about the current state of our culture, and about how our relationships and ways of interacting with each other have changed.

Write a poem in which the speaker becomes nostalgic for an item that no longer exists or is no longer used in its prior form or incarnation. Title that poem, "Don't You Miss The _________," filling in the blank with your selected item. Like Peper, make the reader aware of the context of this item, how it was used, and in what types of settings.  

Try your best to recreate the world or time period in which this item existed so the reader can feel the longing, not only for the object itself, but for the people, places, and situations in which it was commonly found. Also consider and address how the larger culture has changed because of the loss of this item.  

Our objects say a lot about us as people, and when they're gone, a whole way of life and being in the world and with our fellow humans can disappear as well. Personally, we really miss vinyl record albums, although we must admit those iPods are pretty darn convenient.

You new, kissless                 
lips the surgeon made

through which the slick
tongue of my son's life

took its first taste
of this world. Now empty

of coin or entrance, keeper
of the secret my body

never learned to confess,
your cold lips zipped against

the steel that made you.
It was the midwife who

spoke the sentence:
I was doing it wrong,

I'd never learn to let go.
I'd been rehearsing this

disappointment my entire life,
tracing fingers over

its pressed-in letters
now inscribed: the Shema

across this threshold.
Today, as I kiss my fingers

to you, this door that would not
be blessed, secret seam

where my son and I divided,
your silence is kind. Today I see

an indelible smile stitched
below my stretched-out belly,

the stigmata that says this body
did exactly what it was asked to do.

And when it could do no more,
it learned, by God, it learned, 

there may be endless
ways to open.

Last issue I wrote about fueling ourselves and I've been thinking about how quickly that precious fuel slips away. As a nation we are sleep deprived, over scheduled, and in a hurry. Our mind-body energy is used up before we know it, and we aren't sure where it went.

When I'm coaching clients who feel frantic and exhausted, they chalk it up to lack of control over daily life. Hours are gobbled by commitments, last minute requests, and chaos. Even with a plan, the hours are fleeting.

I ask, who is deciding how you'll use your energy? They balk, "Really, I'm in charge of my mental and physical energy." Yes, I nod, but do you get sidetracked and end up wondering what happened? How about determining what to use it on, and what truly doesn't need all you give? Here's a good example.

My client Helen works in a local bookstore. Twice a week her sister calls about a book. The calls last 15 minutes or so and occur during Helen's lunch. Her sister lives 10 blocks away, but insists on calling. She asks Helen to read the book's description, look up the cost, and browse the pages. Helen suggests she go online. Her sister says, "I like my own librarian."

Helen's resentment builds, yet she takes the calls. I ask how much energy she's putting into this situation beyond the phone calls. Helen replies, "I constantly think about what I'll say to end this. Once at work, I wonder when she'll call. After the call I stew about it and get in a bad mood. During the drive home I practice what to say the next time. Once home I call a friend to vent; I guess that's all." Helen can't calculate this in hours, but says it's "a ridiculous amount."

Helen is reluctant to confront her sister for fear of family drama. What outcome is Helen seeking? She thinks her sister wants attention, but she's unsure how to achieve a win-win. I wonder how Helen feels as a personal librarian. She says it makes her feel valued. I suggest that Helen ask her sister why she wants a personal librarian. Helen leaves with a mission.

I saw Helen three weeks later. She said the calls had stopped. I asked, "How?' "Well, I asked my sister why she wanted a personal librarian. She said I had knowledge to select the right books and that made her believe she was smart enough to understand them." Her sister talked to friends who wished they had a personal librarian. Helen suggested her sister invite friends over once a month and she would become their personal librarian, too. She told me the first month was fantastic and that her sister beamed.

Helen made notes on each reader's interests and began matching interests with books. She emailed the titles and when each woman came to the store, she took them to the correct shelf. Over and over Helen credited the idea to her sister. Helen reports that the monthly "book" night and email messages have replaced the calls.

To me, this is a perfect example of giving means getting. Helen determined how much energy she was willing to put into her sister's needs, and found just the right way to do it. She used her energy in a more productive and positive way, bypassed what could have been disastrous to the relationship, and found herself less drained and remarkably less frustrated.Helen made the switch from being worn out by the situation to feeling invigorated.

A long time ago I heard a saying that has stayed with me- you can let life happen to you, or make life happen for you. Helen chose to make it happen.

 * * * * * 

Toni Partington is a poet, editor, collage artist, and life/career coach living in Vancouver, WA. Her poetry has appeared in The Cascade Journal, VoiceCatcher (editions 3 & 4), Perceptions, OutwardLink.net, and others. She is the author of two books of poetry, Jesus Is A Gas (2009) and Wind Wing (2010). Toni serves as Co-Editor for VoiceCatcher, an anthology of women writers and artists, www.voicecatcher.org.  She is a co-founder of Printed Matter Vancouver, a writing, editing and publishing service, [email protected]. 

Toni is a life/career coach who loves to work with writers, artists, and individuals in transition (career, relationships, enhancing creative goals, and retirement, to name a few). She assists her clients in exploring ways to integrate the various facets of their lives into a more satisfying lifestyle. Toni believes in a strength-based approach with a focus on quality of life using practical strategies. For more information about coaching sessions contact Toni at [email protected].

I just finished the how-to classic A Poet's Companion by Dorianne Laux and Kim Addonizio (see my review on www.goodreads.com).  One of the big messages in the book is the more feedback, the better.  It doesn't mean we always want, like or need feedback - you're the final decision-maker regarding your work - but being open to feedback increases the chance that you say what you want to say on the page. 

While it's frustrating to get rejected by a publication, I encourage you to see any response you get back from a journal or contest as helpful feedback, which can help you hone your authentic voice into more effective literature.And if you keep at it, you never know where your work will end up.As Laux and Addonizio say, "...with the wealth of journals geared to every taste, you have an excellent chance of getting published somewhere."   

So let's get started.

Contest:  Mississippi Review Prize

A relatively inexpensive contest ($15) that awards $1,000 each to the winners of a poetry and a fiction contest--all the other finalists compromise one entire issue of Mississippi Review. What's more, everyone who enters receives that issue in the mail. Not much to lose here, and a highly respected literary magazine to boot.  Postmark deadline period of April 1 - October 1.  See www.mississippireview.com for more details.

Literary Journal:  The Spinning Jenny

I love honest poetry.Laux and Addonizio refer to it as "The Shadow", the deeper parts of ourselves that we need more effort in describing, conceptualizing or otherwise coming to grips with. Not that poetry needs to spend a lot of time addressing 'shadowy' topics, it's just one thing that poetry does well. Check out Spinning Jenny by buying a sample for $8 and visiting their quirky website, www.spinning-jenny.com.They read submissions September 15 - May 15 and will get a response back to you within four months.

Online Option:  nthposition

A London-based website that publishes poetry on a monthly basis. These guys want good poetry with an innovative or unusual edge. I like the fact that they welcome political poetry. It's easy to see what they're about from their website - www.nthposition.com - which also features fiction, nonfiction and reviews. They publish roughly 10% of the 2,000 poems they receive every year.

Feel free to contact me with any sort of submission news or information - quality publications, cool contests, responsive editors and even what to avoid.  I'm at [email protected]