Poem a Day Challenge Submission

I emailed Robert Brewer over at Poetic Asides what I think are the five best poems I wrote last month. While I think it would be cool if he chose one of my poems, I'm not going to get my hopes up. He's only going to choose 50, and I'm sure he's going to get submissions of at least 500 poems.

Whether he chooses one of my poems or not, I had a great deal of fun writing poems in April. I've never done anything like this before, but I truly enjoyed it. I've been writing poetry since my high school days, but I've never considered it a serious practice.

I took a poetry writing class with George Barlow at De Anza Community College, and I had one poem published in the student anthology the college put out that year, but that's the extent of my poetry publication.

I did try to take another poetry writing class when I went to UC Berkeley, but I was rejected. You had to submit a few poems to be considered for the class, which was being taught by Thom Gunn. I didn't make the cut. I kept writing poems, but once I graduated, my writing tapered off.

I have written a poem here and there over the years since, and as often as I've been able to manage it, I've written poems in my classroom when we've had Susan Sibbet from California Poets in the Schools come in to teach poetry writing.

But the Poem a Day Challenge certainly whet my appetite for more, and I'm having a blast writing poems, reading poems, and seeing how blogging and the internet are changing how people are writing and reading poems.