On October 18th, I challenged myself to write a poem a day for thirty days. So what’s in a challenge for me? What do I come away with? Thirty poems? Surely there’s more.

This week I finished my thirty-day challenge and I wanted more. So, I threw my pen into a new challenge: a story a day for thirty days. More about that at the end.

For now, why did the poem challenge light me up? I don’t identify as a “real” poet. I’m more of a playground poet, but maybe that was it. I was free to play. The challenge was a license —a poetic license —to do whatever I wanted on the page.

The poem didn’t have to be good. I just had to show up. Some days, splinters and shards of the day pierced the page. Others, the words were primary colors and blocks. I didn’t have a plan. I just showed up and applied Natalie‘s first rule: “Keep your hand moving.”

The poems weren’t good, but they weren’t all bad. And it was always fun.

The first days of the challenge explored fear, shadow, and authenticity. Here are some excepts.

October 19, Day 2

Fear is a shadow
Across your face
Fleeting
So dark yet light,
Weighs nothing.
Is it real?

October 20, Day 3

I want to be seen.
I want to see you.
It’s hard because fitting in and being myself
Cast shadows in different directions.

October 22, Day 5

My fear is a shadow
Blocking the light within
Move
Remove
The objects
They don’t belong to me
They are from a future that is only imagined, unfolded, not mine.

October 23, Day 6

Fear is a shadow in our heads
But the tiger is gone.

In the middle, poems became more about my day-to-day, like the fish pond that emptied, and the things I didn’t do.

November 2, Day 16

We flail a bit
Fish empathy
But we pull ourselves together
We can fix this
We needn’t flail with the fish
They’re helpless
We’re not.

November 4, Day 18

I didn’t do yoga this morning
I didn’t take Venus for a walk yesterday.
I didn’t vacuum or dust
I didn’t mop or put clutter away
I walked past the cloths that waited for hangers
Stepped over dog hair and bird pellets
I didn’t finish the novel or start the story
I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t
I didn’t know time would seem so slow but move so fast.
I look at my life from the helm of this ship
Floating on the surface of a peaceful river, wide and slow,
While the moments, hours, and days
Are caught in the cool quick currents of the riverbed
Carried in a split splash —before I do all the things —into the ocean.

After the 4th, some of the poems took a darker turn. Hmmm.

November 13, Day 27

I think my angels are getting old
and cranky.
They’ve always protected me, I know it,
But last night
A sudden 90-degree curve
Drizzle and dark
I nearly lost it!
Were they napping?
Do they care any more?
Maybe angels have a shelf life.
Maybe they age and wear out from
Saving their people from 90-degree turns
On slick rural roads.

November 16, Day 30

If Fear is a fast foe, Hope is a fickle friend
I banish you both
Out out thieves of the moment
In rough cloaks of want and worry
That chafe my skin
And numb me from the coolness of the breeze on my forearm.

Rereading some of these today, something I don’t normally do with this kind of page, was also fun. With some distance, the topics and awkward turns of phrase make more sense than I expected. I’m not sure if I’ll do anything more with them, but one of Natalie Goldberg’s writing practice suggestions is tempting: tape or glue isolated lines from them on a page or poster board. Random. Rearrange them into something new or use the poster as a jumping off point for timed writing practice.

What felt like synchronicity was today’s reading passage from Natalie Goldberg’s Wild Mind. It’s an excerpt from one of the book’s “Try this” pages: “Kissing a tree is silly? What isn’t silly? Writing is the silliest. If you can write out of silliness, you’ll be a long way on the path.”

What was in the poem challenge for me? The challenge allowed me to be silly. And that silliness led me to some solemn, profound thoughts. That’s the wildness of writing and our minds.

I want to continue this path of “write silly” with a new challenge. I’ve written four stories, and, for twenty-six more days, I’ll write a story a day. I’ll allow the silliest thing that is —writing —to take me to wildest places in my mind.

©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2024.