The End of National Poetry Month-- Dear N.P.M. Can We Exist Without You?

So dear Poets, yesterday was the last day of our month.  The month of the forgotten art, of "what is poetry" and poem in your pocket and NPR interviews and stories to fill us for another year.

What do poets do in May?  Disappear into the daffodils, wander lonely like clouds?

How will we exist without our month?  Oh wait, just as we always have.

It's sort of like when someone asked me how Crab Creek Review (the non-profit, independent literary journal I co-edit) deals with a recession and a bad economy.  My answer?  We're always in a recession as a non-profit literary journal.  It doesn't matter what the world is doing we are still shoestringing our way through each year.

And that's okay.

And it's okay for poets too.

Our lives are in our words, in our writing and creating.  Yes, readers are definitely a plus. Being able to share our work with others, but I would still write even if I knew no one was going to read my work.  I write not knowing if the next book will be published or even if there will be a new book.

I write in uncertain times.

So when this month of NaPoWriMo is over (and I wrote WAY over 30 poems-- though I use the term "poems" loosely here as these are not ready-for-the-world poems, but some good starts), I will continue to write and read books.

I will continue to follow my favorite poets and try to find others, new poets to fall in love with.  Because it's what I do.

No matter what month, it's poetry month in my own sweet world.

And I guess that is how it should always be.