NAPM et al.

[rayheinrich]

I was searching for something unrelated to NAPM and happened to misspell the search
and an old list of pros and cons of NAPM came up from a zillion years ago. Never one to
ignore rabbit holes, I went out and did some new searching and added it to the list. I'm
posting it here since NAPM just finished and I thought some people here might be interested
in these or have some thoughts brought about by this year's NAPM that they'd like to add
to the thread.
(I only, haha, posted one this year. But in the distant past I think I completed it twice and
came close another time or two, but pretty much burnt out after that. My congratulations
to the gold critters this year, it takes dedication and grit. For me, after the first week and
a half, it usually got pretty grim.


Pro: A poem‑a‑day exercise gets people writing regularly.

Con: The pressure to write daily discourages many people, especially beginners, from participating.

Pro: Diverse prompts expand subject matter and push writers into new territory.

Con: Many prompts are too form‑specific or too obscure, which can discourage new participants
and beginners and also lead to shallow content, imitation, and “poetry voice.”

Pro: Writing to a prompt teaches discipline and the ability to shape creativity around a subject.

Pro: The exercise reduces perfectionism and helps people loosen up.

Con: This looseness becomes an excuse for sloppy poetry, for normalizing underdeveloped work.

Pro: The shared challenge builds community and participation.

Pro/Con: I love participating in NAPM, but it shouldn't be confused with outreach to new writers,
it's a marathon for insiders, for veteran writers.

Con: High‑volume posting reduces the quality of critique and encourages quick, shallow responses.

Pro: Writers end the month with a reservoir of drafts they can revise later.

Con: Many never learn to revise because the habit of immediate posting becomes impulsive and
after enough participation becomes a habit.

Pro: Prompts can help writers discover new forms and techniques.

Con: Overemphasis on form invites cliché and imitation. Discourages beginners from writing
from personal experience and knowledge.

Pro: The exercise gives confidence because it provides personal confirmation of one's ability
to generate ideas rather than wait for them.

Con: The pressure to produce daily can cause burnout, diminish the pleasure in writing,
turn it into a homework exercise.

Pro: NAPM can be fun, energizing, and creatively stimulating.

Con: Many prompts encourage cliché, dramatization, and hyperbole.

Pro: Prompts can help writers break out of ruts and habitual subjects.

Con: Prompts that push too far outside of lived experience lead to imitation of existing poetry...
and, beginners especially, tend to draw from the many bad examples they've read in the past.

Pro: The exercise can help new writers identify with the larger community of poets and writers.

Con: The pressure to write daily discourages many people, especially beginners, from participating.

Pro: The structure gives people something to look forward to each day.

Con: Writing daily encourages posting first drafts without reflection or revision;
leaves little room for deep thinking or careful crafting.

[RiverNotch]

I agree with these pros and cons, which is why it's a great thing to participate in fully once in a while---as in, like, two out of twelve months, maybe, though I tend to give up more on one of those months if I complete the other. It's a bit of variety, especially if most of the rest of one's work is highly personal or occasional.

I think when it comes to revising though, the problem with NaPM is that you end up too busy to put individual entries to thorough revision right when it's still fresh on your mind, or else you'd rather whole series be revised than just one or two entries, which is maybe a bit much for workshopping. The latter is what I'm tempted to do, especially since they're all one form, but again, that's gonna be so so many lines....

[wasellajam]

I'll call bullshit these two cons:

Con: Many never learn to revise because the habit of immediate posting becomes impulsive and
after enough participation becomes a habit.

Con: Writing daily encourages posting first drafts without reflection or revision;
leaves little room for deep thinking or careful crafting.

It's clear that the NaPM threads are segregated, like the Practice threads. The poems can live there untouched as an exercise or they can move into careful crafting and workshopping, the same as your home notebook, whatever form that lives in. The process is similar to what I do here anyway: write something, edit it for flaws I can see on my own and then workshop it, usually still pretty raw. So for me the NaPM poems aren't that different, some are trashy and some have potential, can't blame NaPM for that.