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Introduction
Hey! I am Ananya Panwar, a fellow challenger for the half poetry marathon 2021.
Writing and reading are my hobbies, not necessarily in that order.
Hope to have a lot of fun and exercise my creative muse.
Lastly, I am pleased to make your acquaintance.
Excited and nervous
Hello fellow Marathoners,
This is my first poetry marathon and I am doing the 12 in 12. I live in Rockville, MD so will be in the same time zone as Cailin and Jacob Jans.
I am relatively new at writing and took courses/workshops run by Authors Publish which has been a great help in discovering the unknown world of writing and publishing. I just had my first short story and first poetry published earlier this month. So June has been a great literary month for me! Looking forward to reading all the poetry that this marathon will produce.
Good luck!
Nandhini
Good Luck and Happy Writing Fellow Poets!!
Hi Everyone!
My name is Siobhan and I am a marathoner from Canada. I love poetry as it is my solace, strength, refuge, passion and privilege. I am a devoted single Mom to a wonderful daughter as well as a pet Mom to a delightful dog, a happy hamster and fabulous fish! I am honored and thrilled to be able to sit and write with you all tomorrow but also to walk through the open door of your art. I am so grateful! Have a blast Everyone!
Greetings, my fellow poets
I’ve just returned from my family’s vacation in Estes Park and I am getting ready to write poetry tomorrow. I participated last year and I am ready to accept the half-marathon challenge in 2021. I feel like life lived in the past year will be more than enough fodder to create moving poems in this marathon. I guess we shall see where inspiration will strike.
I am an English teacher (AP Literature, Creative Writing, and Junior English) with 25 years of experience! My sons are grown. One is a 1st Lt. in the Marines and my 19-year-old started his own arborist business after graduating high school in 2020. My husband and I have been married for 28 years this summer.
I have a goal this year of reading 100 books and I’ve currently read 59. I am 12 books ahead of schedule according to Goodreads. Last year I read 76. I know I will never read all of the books but I am sure enjoying trying.
I wish everyone just the right words to say what you feel! Happy writing!
Pre-Marathon Poem
Fabrication
Construction begins tomorrow
at 9am sharp, not weather dependent,
not whether I’m ready or not, not
a question of it not happening,
God willing.
Before 9am, I will say my rosary
and my daily prayers, shower,
slather in some mega-moisture
conditioner and leave it in; I will
not be going anywhere tomorrow.
I will pick a pretty bathing suit and
that will be my construction outfit
for the day; I will not be swimming,
cleaning, doing laundry or cooking,
I won’t even be digging in the garden.
I will be excavating the ponderous pile
of pending poems that are strewn
in random order in my head. My muse,
Harry, and I will sort and write, edit and
polish, one poem an hour for 24 hours.
As a team, we will tap into lines jotted
on scraps of paper, old envelopes, and
lining journals that line every bookshelf,
prompts hanging from curtain rods, hiding
in dust bunny fashion, and those right
before my eyes. The Poetry Marathon
welcomes us in unabashed embrace
and we can hardly wait.
There will not be enough time in one day
for us to deconstruct my writhing darlings,
to undam all those recalcitrant snippets
that litter the byways of my brain canals
but we will pickaxe them like rich veins
of pure gold, mine them into versed lines,
titled, kissed, and cataloged, and then
move on to the next and the next
until two dozen fledglings breathe.
9am Saturday sleepless through 9am
Sunday. A few miles on the exercise bike,
berries in blue, black, and red to snack on,
and the holy grail of decadent rewards –
one piece of dark chocolate for every poem
birthed, scrubbed, and baptized. I hid the bag,
will abracadabra it to my desk in the morning,
along with hot caffeine until noon, then cold,
then maybe a splash of gin that goes so well
with Dove chocolates, and those inspirations
inside the foil wrappers will become magical
poems when the sky is sparkled with stars
and my Harry is napping.
A day away, construction begins tomorrow,
a tool belt full of metaphors, no hard hat,
no work boots – I’ll be barefoot; no way
I’m going to miss this distraction-empty time
writing writing writing. Join me if you dare.
~ J R Turek
June 25, 2021
hello
Hi,
I’m Jarrod. I primarily write fiction, but I’ve also dabbled in poetry. It’s always been present in my writing, in some form or another. I find that sentences themselves sound much better with a little poetic inspiration (after all who doesn’t love alliteration?).
In 2017, I graduated with a BFA in Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design. While there, I was part of a poetry club. We called this little club ‘Poets with Passion’ and though poets came and went it was mostly the club president and I (an amazing writer we’ll just call IJ) attempting really poor and very loud slam poetry at various venues in Atlanta. Looking back, I realize the looks of surprise were more from people being shocked at the volume and affectation than the effectiveness of my prose.
I signed up for the Poetry Marathon because, to be honest, I’ve kind of abandoned poetry. I miss writing/performing it, and while I don’t miss the open-mic yelling, I do miss the emotion.
I’m looking for a car-battery-hooked-to-nipples type of jump start, so I think this will be perfect. I hope to get a lot of writing done and to run across a word or sentence, some bit of writing that reminds me of why I cared about poetry in the first place.
See you on the other side, ever-enduring word cadets.
Morgan Harvey
Hi! I live in Los Angeles, CA and am currently working on my first novel. While prose has always been my focus, I love the creativity and whimsy of poetry. I haven’t written any since college so I am excited to see what new passions this marathon can unleash.
“…I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now…”
It’s been seven years since I first introduced myself to this incredible group. And I’m still writing poetry, still putting it out there, still finding (sometimes!) homes for what crystallises from my inner chaos. I love my annual participation in the Half Marathon: I’ve made so many friends! Not to mention that each year, at least a couple of the pieces I draft (in the 12 hours I suspend my disbelief that I can do this) are published.
I live in Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We moved here 4+ years ago, to be w/ my son, DIL, and 2 grandsons. I’ve never been happier. I find myself writing about this new landscape, the foggy mountainscape, the different birds & chipmunks & voles… I’m very lucky we moved before last year’s madness.
Here’s hoping that this year is brighter than last, and that we all complete our work!
Not quite ready to rumble
Hey y’all, I’m Allison. I’m a 37-year old writer based in Chicago, where it’s supposed to thunderstorm all weekend. Bad for people who want to enjoy vaccinated life at the beach, but great for me! This is my first marathon, and I’m hoping it’ll help me warm up the poem-writing muscles I haven’t used much since I started working as a film and TV critic. I’m also trying to raise money for the Chicago Black Drag Council, which gives out microgrants to Black nightlife gig workers across the country.
Sadly, I don’t use Facebook, but if anyone out there wants to connect over Twitter or Insta, hit me up. And if you need a cheerleader, I am terrible at cartwheels but great at Leslie Knope-style inspirational speeches. Let me know.
