Poetry Month

April is poetry month!

I love poetry. But, as you know if you were reading PBW last April, I’m super bad at it. But I try, damn it, I try.

This year, I’d like to invite all of you to try with me. So, all of April, we’re going to take over Facebook and Instagram. (I’d include Twitter, but it’s really hard to write poetry in 140 characters.

How to play along

There are two ways to play. The first is to write poetry and share it on Facebook and Instagram.

If you’re sharing on Facebook, you can either do it right on the Paper Beats World Facebook page. Or, you can share it with the hashtag #pbwpoetrychallenge. I’ll be doing the same. My goal is to write one poem a day to post. For future reference, it’s not cheating if you write 30 haikus. Because I might.

If you’re sharing on Instagram, use the same hashtag #pbwpoetrychallenge. If you’re not used to Instagram and unsure how to share a poem there, here’s what I do. I either write the poem on a sheet of paper, then snap a picture of it. Or, I’ll create the poem on an image using Canva or Pablo then share it from there. (You could also use Paint, Photoshop or your favorite picture creating software. I just like Pablo and Canva.)

If you don’t want to write poems but do want to see everyone else’s poetry, just search for those hashtags. You’ll probably stumble upon my awful poetry, though, I’m just warning you.

The other way to play along is simple. Just read one poem, every day. Then post what poem you read on Facebook or Twitter. Again, the hashtag is #pbwpoetrychallenge. I’ll be looking out for your tweets.

All of April, let’s fill social media with poetry.

And if you want to play along on a more global scale use #npm17 to participate in the official National Poetry Month celebration. You can also tweet right to them at @POETSorg.