How to write a poem every day

And why every poet should try it, at least once.

I’m a lazy writer. If I don’t have a deadline I just don’t get things done.

This is especially true with poetry. No one is checking up on me. I can go at my own pace, which is, more often than not, desperately sluggish.

So in April 2019, I challenged myself to write a poem every single day.

For the first few days, it was fun, exhilarating. I wasn’t used to thinking about poetry this much and my head was full of unspent creative ideas.

A week or so in though, I realised this was going to be a tough old month. Some nights I would be lying in bed at 11.30 pm, desperately scanning my brain for the slightest scrap of inspiration, typing inconsequential words into my phone notes, cursing my decision to do this to myself, dropping off and dropping my phone on my face, picking it up, repeating the process.

But I knew I couldn’t go to sleep for real until I’d written that day’s poem, by hook or by crook. After all, these poems were going on Instagram. If I missed a day people would notice.

It turns out a healthy amount of social embarrassment was good for me. And by pushing through the tougher times, I’d gotten more control over my brain. So I didn’t have to wait passively for inspiration to strike, I could go out and find it.

If you want to give daily poeting a try, read these tips before you start!

Do it where people can see it

If you’re going to challenge yourself to write a poem every day, you have to find a way to hold yourself accountable otherwise it’s far too easy just to stop. I shared the poems on my Instagram as part of an Instagram/Twitter event called escapril, but there are others, the most well-known being NaPoWriMo.

If you don’t fancy something that public, you could get together with a friend or two and email each other your poems every day.

Have a set of prompts prepared in advance

The best part of #escapril was that the organiser wrote 30 daily prompts for us. These were vital, as when you’re going to be writing a poem every single day, you cannot rely on inspiration.

The prompts can be as vague or specific as you like. It could be, write about an animal, write about the changing seasons, write about catharsis. For ideas, search the hashtag #poetryprompts on Instagram, read think written’s list of 101 prompts or check out Robert Peake’s prompt generator.

Start as soon as you get up

I get the bus to work in the morning. It’s a 40-minute journey which I usually spend listening to a podcast and playing games on my phone. But during April I could spend this time reading the day’s prompt, and starting to formulate my response to it.

That mulling time in the morning meant that while I was at work, those ideas would be kicking around in the back of my head, so by the time it came to my lunch break or the end of the workday, I could start writing straight off the bat.

Stop being a perfectionist

As a person who’s used to editing, re-editing and perfecting poems over a period of months, the thought of publishing my first draft for everyone to see was horrifying, initially.

But after the first week or so, horror turned to liberation. It’s like the feeling you get when you cut your hair really short. As soon as it’s done, you can’t imagine what you were so scared of. You can always go back and edit the poem later if you want to.

Experiment and mess around

This is a time to have fun and try new techniques you’ve never gotten round to trying!

On day two of escapril, I wrote a uni-vocal poem, using just one vowel. On day eight I tried out a backwards poem, and on day 11 I wrote a poem from the perspective of Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

You could also try giving yourself a set of words that you have to include in the poem, or if you’re feeling ambitious, try starting every word with the same letter. Mixing it up like this will also help the challenge to feel fresh every day.

Give yourself some easy days

Although it can be very easy to fall into the trap of wanting to improve on every day and be even more ambitious with your creations, you have to be kind to yourself too!

Some days you will feel lazy, tired, sad, or just be too busy to write a big ole poem on top of that. So try something short instead, like a haiku, or a fragment of blank verse. They’re still tricky, obviously, no art is going to be easy, but for me at least, they feel more manageable.

Have an end in sight

If you do decide to write a poem every day, it will definitely, definitely consume your life. There’s no getting around that. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you’ll be thinking about that day’s poem. So for sanity’s sake, set yourself an end goal.

When you get to that goal you may want to continue, but giving yourself that cut off point gives you something to work towards so you’ll be less likely to give up!

Now you’re ready, good luck!

And see you next April for NaPoWriMo?

You can read my poetry @poppy.poet on Instagram.