A year ago, I joined a challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days.

Honestly?

It was revelatory.

It opened up language as feeling: the sound and experience of words; how and why we express our thoughts; the layers of meaning in a simple phrase.

Some of the poems were kind of great and some kind of stunk. No matter. If I hadn’t done the challenge, I doubt I’d be such an advocate of reading a poem every day. It’s unlikely I’d have adapted a Wordsworth poem as a song coming this Autumn, or be signed up for a course on his works in March to continue mining for gold.

I’ll share one of my favorite poems I’ve written sometime soon. It’s about something green and growing, featured prominently here.