National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo) is a
creative writing
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...
project held annually in April in which participants attempt to write a
poem
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...
each day for one month. NaPoWriMo coincides with the
National Poetry Month National Poetry Month, a celebration of poetry which takes place each April, was introduced in 1996 and is organized by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. The Academy of Amer ...
in the United States of America and Canada.
History
Maureen Thorson, a poet and publisher of
Big Game Books announced the project March 17, 2003 as an online project on her blog. She invited other poets with blogs to join her in the project and listed the participating poets. Thorson has continued to run the project each year on her blog with more poets participating as the word has spread about the project.
In 2009 the
American Academy of Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...
tied the project to a fund-raising drive for the Academy. The Academy had announced the fund-raising drive in honor of NaPoWriMo's "fifth anniversary" when it was actually the project's sixth year of existence.
Other sites fostering the project include the following:
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ReadWritePoem: No longer active, but archives kept on-line. Discussed NaPoWriMo in 2008, and supported NaPoWriMo with daily poetry prompts 2009-2010. Produced an anthology via Lulu press for 2010.
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Bloof Books: Created a
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...
for the 2009 project..
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The Poetry Cove: In 2021 The Poetry Cove community launched an initiative to promote the project with its large online poetry community, posting daily prompts and encouraging different discussions and support around NaPoWriMo as well as raising awareness across the internet.
References
External links
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DUP themed NaPoWriMo competitions
April observances
Writing contests
Poetry organizations
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