The Alipore Post Poetry Month

So, www.the.aliporepost.com (and it’s corresponding Instagram handle) was celebrating poetry writing last month. I have always enjoyed writing but this was different. I wrote poetry for 30 days. And then I put it up on social media.

I have lots to say apparently -

• The first 7 days were the easiest, funnest and most exciting.
• It’s hard though, extremely hard to put your imagination and stories out there for the world to see.
• By day 10, I did not like how some of my poems could be perceived differently by others. (I’ll come back to this on day 15).
• There were some poems where my feelings would show through even if I went through 25 edits and many filters. By edit 26, I would take away the filters and let my feelings show. At it’s rawest. Only way I liked what I wrote.
• By day 15, I took my poetry very seriously. Surprisingly, at this point I stopped caring that it could be perceived differently by others.
• I also figured some of my poems are best reserved for the heart, words would never be worthy of these.
• By day 21, I realised there is something even harder than putting your imagination out there. It is having to show up consistently just like you would a dayjob, even on days you were terrified and worried sick about your loved ones given the pandemic shitshow in India.
• I tried different styles of writing, read different styles of poems. IMHO drama very rarely makes for a good poem or good writing.
• Yes. I valued honest feedback, as long as you had been up on the stage trying yourself too. The rule of thumb I follow/ed is if you are not out there getting your hands dirty but are constantly doling out criticism sitting in the audience, I will likely toss it out the window. True for writing, true for life. (Thank you Brene Brown, for the wonderful advice).
• Damn, I really enjoyed social media.
• By day 30, I was a proud girl. By day 30, I was also a very relieved girl that April did not have 31 days.
• Life immediately after writing poetry for a month consists of rhymes popping up in daily conversations. It’s kinda cute :)