Nine days into April, I’ve written 12 poems. In my last NaPo post, I flouted the rules of NaPoWriMo by admitting that I had no intention of blogging my poems but was using the activity as a motivation to actually write some every day. One of my three loyal blog readers responded to by shaming me into posting my poems, even if anonymously. So somewhere out there, I’m posting, and it seems that a couple of people are even reading me, though few comment. Which is fine, as I don’t often comment on the things I’m reading lately, even if I like them very much. I always feel a little presumptuous offering comments, because who am I to think my opinion of somebody’s work counts for much? And yet if I do try to comment, I get carried away, teleported back to my time in school, when I think I probably was a tolerably decent reader and critic, and I wind up pronouncing all sorts of things that are probably stupid. So I try to make myself keep quiet for the most part.

Of my 12 poems, five are very short, and three are really probably smaller parts of one slightly larger sequence (which still puts me at the nine poems required by today to not be a NaPoWriMo outlaw). Counting the three sequence pieces as one, I’d say that six of the poems are ones that I think I could do something really decent with. There are a couple that I think might actually be pretty good in their current form, though I find it really hard to decide what of my work rises above dismal. It could always be wishful thinking or a difficulty distancing myself enough from what I’m writing to judge it with anything approaching objectivity.