LanguageI'm five days into National Poetry Writing Month and to help me get through the marathon I've set up a theme for myself, poems about language. This was partially inspired by the Al Filreis' ModPo MOOC course I completed last year. 

Each poem incorporates two famous sayings or quotes in the text. So far I've been writing about how language compares to what is, writing as a threat to tell, writing as journey vs. writing as truth vs. writing as representation vs. writing to make a commodity, the ability of poetry to be progressive, and language theory.

Of course these are not polished and perfect little pieces. The goal is to pop one out every day. That means you only get a few hours to conceive, draft it out and revise. No workshopping. No morning after. Lots of regrets. But maybe learning to live with regret is the lesson.

You can read my progress at http://hellopoetry.com/mary-mccray/

This is the second year I've used the Hello Poetry site and it has been a good board for meeting other poets and watching reading trends.

The graphic above comes from a site on Language from the University of Minnisota.