I woke this morning realizing this whole poem a day thing starts tomorrow (April Fools Day – I wonder if there is a message there) and quickly went down the rabbit hole of being totally intimidated.

Art Every Day Month (November) doesn’t intimidate me.  Look to the right side and you will see that I have been

participating since 2010 (actually before then but I think I’ve had this particular website since 2010).  Art doesn’t intimidate me because there are so many workarounds:  can’t paint?  collage.  Can’t collage? sketch in bold black magic marker – color in with crayons another day.  Two days done.  Can’t sketch?  Go throw together a mosaic.  Once I would have said Go put your hands in clay but I had to sell my clay studio when we downsized and moved closer in and I think, after trying to make it work by taking a class at the close by Community College where I started my clay journey in the late 1990s, that perhaps clay and I have run our course.  (besides, my opus in clay was done in 2006:  Chesapeake, North Beach, Md  boardwalk).

Which is where writing comes in.  I have bins of work that I didn’t sell at shops or shows.  Big work.  Nine torsos hanging on my back fence for lack of places to put them.  When I pulled paintings out of closets to move I realized that I am one prolific soul and I work big:  24×36, 36×36.  Downsizing means less wall space, plus I have over a dozen pieces by others I want out where I can see them.  Writing is paper and bookshelves and computer. (Well, books to read for inspiration – they do take up space. But books.  There is no way to simply a life long passion for reading)

In the 90s I wrote a lot of poetry, having the luck to fall in with a writing group at St Mary’s College in Southern Maryland, whose members included the amazing Lucille Clifton.  I also met and found a mentor in Grace Cavalieri who has ever been her name in my life (thanks to her I read a poem and was on a panel of 3 poets on NPR’s “The Poet and The Poem”).

I am excited to join this adventure with all the other NaPoWriMos writers.  Thanks and a shout out to ZouxZoux whose newsletter turned me on to this and to Green Eyes Not Hazel who is my opposite coast writing buddy.  Onward!