I’m celebrating National Poetry Month on the Write-Brained Network in a big way.

Poetry seems to intimidate people who don’t write or read it often (what is up with that??), and I think this is a great opportunity to change that perception and do something cool.  So, if poetry isn’t necessarily in your comfort zone, GOOD!  All the better! I hope you’ll come check us out our festivities and participate anyway!

RHYMOWRIMO

Since September on the WB, we have had writing challenges every month.  For example, we have WordWatchers, which is basically like NaNoWriMo—except it’s a bit more laid back in that you set the amount of words you think would be feasible (but still challenging) to write in a given week, and then you report on your progress, etc.

However, WordWatchers is for fiction and nonfiction and doesn’t really work for poets because poetry isn’t about making daily or weekly word counts.

Enter RhyMoWriMo, which will be sort of like WordWatchers. The poetry won’t have to RHYME—I just thought the name had a nice, dorky ring to it. Participants will have one official prompt or type of poem to write per week in April (starting Monday, April 4), for a chance to win a prize.

MODERN POETS SERIES

To introduce some amazing modern poets to the group, we will present a series of short interviews with a “featured poet” or poetry expert each week.

To kick off our the series, meet Dave Lucas, whose debut poetry collection, Weather, hit shelves April 1.

Dave was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the recipient of a Henry Hoyns Fellowship from the University of Virginia and a “Discovery”/The Nation Prize, and his poems have appeared in many journals including Paris Review, Poetry, and Slate. He lives in Cleveland and Ann Arbor, where he is a PhD candidate in English language and literature at the University of Michigan.

See my interview with the award-winning poet.

Dave, on sonnets.

THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE

Try your hand at writing a sonnet—extra points for a “more advanced” entry (here’s a refresher course).  Leave your entries in the comments to this post for a chance to win a signed copy of Dave’s debut collection, Weather.

POETRY CHAT—APRIL 26, 9-10 PM

This month’s chat topic to be poetry.  Genius, I know. But it’s going to be a little different in that we will have a guest or two—perhaps one or two of the folks featured in the series (TBA).

Get over your poetry phobias and get scrawling!