This year, I decided to expand my capabilities and embark on little monthly challenges. Some of them are financed-based, some are fitness-based and some are just for fun. I really have no rhyme or reason for the challenges, I just wanted something to focus on for each month.
The challenge:
For September, the challenge was to read a poem every day.
The parameters:
Earlier this year, I read What You Are Looking For is in the Library and I loved it. One of the stories in the book is about a man who begins reading poetry and writes down his favorite poems. It was a beautiful story, and I wanted to find poems I liked so much that I would write them down to read again later.
How did I do?
Well, I read a poem every day, so I met that part of the challenge. I thought it would be easy to find a poem to read, that I could just google “poems”, and a bunch of poems would show up in the results. However, I found that the majority of the results were links to lists of “famous poems”. And I’ve already read The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. I was hoping to find poems that I’ve never read before, to find a diamond in the rough, so to speak. I ended up signing up for a Poem of the Day email from the Poetry Foundation. Every day, I would get an email in my inbox to read.
Lessons learned:
I thought that reading a poem a day would bring me some sort of insight or enlightenment. I thought I would feel sophisticated and wise after reading poetry for 30 days. But honestly, it was kind of boring. I think part of it was that the poems were just okay. Nothing really stood out to me. I think if I did this challenge again, I would try to find a poet that I enjoyed reading, and I would attempt to read all their poems.
Even though this challenge didn’t quite work out the way I thought it would, I’m still glad I did it.
I’ll be back next month with a new challenge.
2025 Monthly challenges:
January: Food budgeting
February: Sit-ups
March: Decluttering
April: Puzzles
May: Cozy Journaling
June: Granny Squares
July: Sock knitting
August: A picture a day
September: A poem a day
Interesting challenge. I have a hard time reading poetry. Not sure why but maybe a challenge like this would help me overcome it.
I like poetry, but it is so hit or miss! I have to find a poem that really resonates with me for me to love it.