{"id":137990329,"date":"2025-04-01T08:41:55","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T13:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=137990329"},"modified":"2025-05-23T21:01:54","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T02:01:54","slug":"april-is-a-foolish-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/april-is-a-foolish-month\/","title":{"rendered":"April is a Foolish Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

April is, of course,\u00a0National Poetry Month<\/a>. And April 1st is the beginning of the\u00a0A to Z Blogging Challenge<\/a>, which I completed with a poem a day \u2013 in the spirit of\u00a0NaPoWriMo \/ GloPoWriMo<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0in 2023<\/a>. The\u00a0Writers Digest Poem-a-Day (PAD) Challenge,<\/a> which I did last November, begins anew today. And of course I\u2019m in my second year of doing The Stafford Challenge<\/a>, which is to write a poem a day for a\u00a0 whole year. Today is Day 75. This year? I\u2019m doing them all. Plus entering 30 poetry contests, judging two, enjoying fun time with family, traveling to the last two of fifty states I haven\u2019t yet visited, and attending Poetry at Roundtop<\/a>. Yay!<\/p>\n

Today’s poem was…<\/h2>\n

Originally titled, “Art Class.” After sharing it among a small group of poets who suggested a better title, I’m calling it “Origami Wings.”<\/p>\n

I hate that writing, once it has “lost its virginity” by being published in any form, is devalued – never mind that there are, perhaps, 30 readers who will ever see it here on this blog. In 2023, Timothy Green proposed a new term of art that has gained some traction among publishers: “Uncurated.”<\/p>\n

Imagine how literature would thrive if we could share our art with our friends in the medium of the era. How much more fun would online open mics be if everyone knew they were free to share the poem they were most proud of\u2014the one they just wrote yesterday?\u00a0Rattle<\/em>\u2019s weekly podcast includes a supportive and enriching open lines segment, but most poets are hesitant to share and \u201cspoil\u201d their newest work. The joy of sharing what we create is one of the main things that sustains us as artists. We shouldn\u2019t have to wait years wading through rejection letters to feel it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read Green’s whole proposal at “Uncurated: The Case for a New Term of Art<\/a>.”\u00a0Unfortunately, this won’t work well for contests where anonymity is important to fairness. I was going to hold back, but a small voice in my head reminded me that words are meant to be read. Ideas are meant to be shared. Communication is an act requiring two or more.<\/p>\n

Today’s Poem is…<\/h2>\n

Origami Wings<\/h3>\n
She made the most\r\nexquisite corpse\r\nfolded over on itself\r\nhalf a dozen times. The best\r\nof times when flowers\r\ngraced her curves,\r\nher ample breasts; the worst\r\nof times, when they\r\ncast cross-hatch shade\r\nconcentric circles,\r\nlevers, steampunk gears\r\nbetween her hip-bones, thighs,\r\nas if to mar her\r\nnakedness and make of her\r\na twisted mess of cobbled parts\r\nlaid bare beneath\r\nflorescent glare for little\r\nboys to snicker at,\r\nwhile girls decided then\r\nand there to bind\r\ntheir chests, lean in\r\nto art and ugliness,\r\nexpress revulsion, silent\r\nrage - while bleeding\r\nink through every knife-edged\r\npaper crease, until\r\none artist's fingers\r\ndeft with mercy\r\nturned her corpse to origami\r\nfolded arms to angels\r\nwings and\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0let\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0her\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0fly<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the folly of tackling multiple “challenges” and the dilemma of sharing writing online that leads to a “sexual revolution” in poetry. (Don’t worry – the post and the poem are PG at worst!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1012911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[],"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[2741],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing","tag-a2z2025"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 16:14:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990329"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990341,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990329\/revisions\/137990341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1012911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990329"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}