Brianna Pike, National Poetry Month, and Tupelo Press’s 30/30 Project

I love poetry. I love reading it, I love studying it, I love teaching it.

I’m not very good at writing it. But that shouldn’t stop me from practicing it. So I’ve been planning for a while to spend April — National Poetry Month — writing a poem a day, just for the exercise of it.

There are a lot of poets out there who are also planning to write a poem a day, which I’m excited about because they’re actually good at this. And one of those poets is my dear friend and one of my favorite poets, Brianna Pike. She’s participating in Tupelo Press’s 30/30 Project, where, to celebrate National Poetry Month, she’ll be writing a poem each day in April and Tupelo Press will publish each poem on the press’s blog, one a day.

This project is a celebration of poetry, but it’s also a fundraiser: Tupelo Press is an independent literary press so devoted to art that they operate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, putting poetry and prose ahead of profits. That means they occasionally need to raise money in order to publish their books and pay their authors. And what better way to raise money than with poems!

So the way the 30/30 Project works is that you sponsor the participating poets, a bit like you’d sponsor a runner’s miles in a fundraising race, or sponsor a player in a fundraising basketball free-throw rally. If you decide to sponsor Brianna in the 30/30 Project, you can contribute $15 and Brianna will write a poem on a subject you pick. Poetry-on-demand! Customized verse! Or, if you contribute $30, Brianna will print and mail you a copy of one of her existing (and wonderful) poems on quality paper, signed and with a personalized note from Brianna. (That’s gold, folks! Seriously — I’m a fan of her work.)

You can read all the details on Brianna’s blog, or, if you want to just head straight to the 30/30 Project and sponsor Brianna, go to the blog, click the DONATE button, and make sure you type “Brianna Pike” into the blank labelled “In Honor Of.”

And yes, I’ll still be writing a poem a day myself, and if I get brave, I might share some of those from time to time. But I’ll also be sharing the poetry of others, including Brianna’s 30/30 Project poems, so stay tuned to the blog, gang!