It’s the end of Global Poetry Writing Month, a challenge I participated in, writing poetry daily through the month of April. This means that I’m back to writing normal daily blogs from today. First, though, a couple of answers:
Why does that suck?
Because I can’t resort to Haiku when I feel low on inspiration and therefore want to escape from writing.
What did I get out of the challenge?
Absolutely nothing but happiness.
Some days were crazy, I never thought I’d struggle so much to figure out things about a particular theme. It helped me figure out that my brain is far more complicated and disorganized than I am as an individual, because it doesn’t categorize information in slots (though it does that with conversations). But it was absolutely beautiful. I learnt so much reading around the poems I was writing – learning about different styles, watching different pieces, understanding rhyme schemes, poem structure. It’s just been a great learning experience.
I also learned that my range of vocabulary is quite low, as compared to what it once was, or what I thought it was. As a child, I was told by teachers that I was learning new words rapidly – maybe it was the reading habit I was forced into, maybe it’s the spelling bee, but I feel like (a) they were trying to motivate me, (b) there are no other compliments a nerd will blush at, and that’s why they said those things. This month was an eye-opener that way – I struggled to find words to express what I was feeling, though I knew a word existed in the dictionary, and did rely on Google a few times. Maybe the 52-in-52 will help me regain some of that.
Wow, are you a poet now?
No, I never was, and I never will be. I enjoy writing these things on the Internet, so if you can find a word for that – which doesn’t demean/degrade people who are incredible poets (Happy Birthday Radhika!) by putting me in their company, great, I am that.
So that’s what GloPoWriMo has been all about. Lots of fun.
What has sucked, however, is that I have not completed a book in the last week, which marks a dent to my 52-in-52 Challenge. The only flipside to this is that I was some 4/5 books ahead, which means I don’t have much catching up to do.
What’s been up in the past month?
I assume people reading want to know about what’s been going on in my life, but even if you don’t, you’ve read this piece till here, you might as well find out.
Not much, really. I have been chilling, enjoying the final days of my 2nd year, and whining away in a pile of Case Laws I do not fully understand (yet) and provisions that are merely getting stuck in my head for the purposes of an examination.
Yes, it’s end-semester season again.
I’m hopeful of writing a more fun/humorous post tomorrow, but I thought I’d use today just to play catch-up.
As always, and this is something I cannot reiterate enough, a massive thank-you to people who read my attempts to rhyme throughout April. I do not believe I succeeded in writing a poem with a consistent rhyme scheme, but thank you for following along. I hope you’re inclined to read my normal blogposts too (I’m humorous, I swear).
Till tomorrow then!
Tejas Rao 