Your Mission (Part II): Write

Ten days. Five poems. Simple. The only other requirement is that all of the poems must be at least ten (10) lines long and no more than fifty (50) lines long. Oh, and they all have to have titles.

There's an oft-quoted story about the poet William Stafford. Stafford's writing regimen consisted of writing a poem a day. He'd wake up, maybe grab a cup o' Joe, and start writing. Around mid-morning, he'd put the poem-in-progress down and go about his day. Run errands. Read. Eat lunch. What have you. After lunch, he'd revisit the poem. Jot a few more lines. Tweak some of the ones he'd already written. Put it down for a while longer. After eating dinner and doing the dishes, he'd sit back down with the poem and bring it to fruition. Then he'd go to bed, wake up the next day, and do it again. Upon hearing about this system -- a finished poem a day, every day -- that's a lot -- somebody asked him how he did it. "I lower my standards," he said.

Moral of the story? The real work of writing is confronting the blank page and filling it. Genius is overrated.

These five poems are due no later than Friday, Aug 22. When I get back, I'll read them and we'll conference individually to help you prepare for your first critique submission.