Finished - poetry challenge completed

Well, I have reached my goal and the last poem in my year long challenge to write a poem a day has been written.

The poem is in fact entitled The Last Poem, a fitting end to the struggles to get words on paper (or screen). I feel there should be some sort of celebration, but what? I am not even sure what I feel right now. Part relief, perhaps, and a sort of loss.

In a way these poems chart my life for the last year. They relate to the seasons, environmental issues, lockdown, mini stories, funny, odd, quirky and a hand full of what might be called erotic poems. I've tried to be a bit more experimental in places, though that doesn't come so easy to me. Most are free verse but some rhyme. I think there is one villanelle. I rarely use form. Perhaps that should be my next challenge....NO, not another challenge!

What should I do with all these poems? Well, some are out there, though one poetry pamphlet competition I entered has declared its list and I wasn't even on the longlist. I am waiting on the result of another. I had another magazine rejection where three poems were sent. There is one other magazine I am waiting on - the only submission I did in April.

I think I need to step back from the poems for a bit now. There will be some of these that will never be good enough, that will never be submitted. Some can be reworked and some definitely need a title change! At the end of the day I might just self-publish. For now, I am proud that I have achieved my challenge. It forced me to write every day. I didn't sit around waiting for the muse to take me. Sometimes it was a case of just putting words on page to see where they took me. I wrote fast, edited as I went then shut down the file. I'd only go back to it if I thought I had something better to say, a word replacement. I would go back and edit if I thought the poem was close to being complete, say if I thought it suitable for a magazine or competition.

Most poems were written straight to laptop. The only spell I really struggled was while I was on holiday last year. I could not write at all. I then had major catch-ups. Yet I always got there. I'd binge write to get back on track. In fact I have over 365 poems because some weeks I wrote extra.

I have periods when I read others work, like this morning when I read a poem online and thought, that's why I don't make it. This is brilliant. I feel I can't compete with that. It's that I'm not good enough voice that gets into my head. There are far too many good poets out there all struggling to get noticed. I try to tell myself that just because my poetry isn't accepted doesn't make me a bad poet, because I know others go through this. However, it doesn't make it any easier. The competition is overwhelming, the chances so few. So, I feel it is down to me now.