Epilogue – Reflections on the 100 poems challenge

It’s now nearly four months since I embarked on the 100 poems challenge, and four days since posting the last poem. It’s probably a little early to have a full sense of perspective on the collection (not that I expect that this is a matter of any great consequence) but I do have a gut feeling about which of the poems seem to “work” and which are ones are not worth bothering with … and there are some that fall somewhere in between. So, I have been through the collection, and classified the poems according to my own devoid-of-objective-criteria judgement of good, bad and middling. The “Should Remain Obscure” category contains those poems which—while I am not actively ashamed of them—clearly miss the mark: they might be overdone, lack atmosphere, or try too hard. At the other extreme there is the “Not Too Bad at All” category: these poems are ones that I think can stand on their own two feet and be allowed out in public without apology. In some cases they aren’t necessarily great poems, but it may be that they do their small job well. I don’t claim that I think they’re publishable, necessarily, but they’re the ones most likely to stake a claim for that (although there are a couple in this category that could use a little more polishing). In between lie the “Fair to Middling” poems, which may have parts that work, or they almost come off but don’t quite, or there’s a bit I like but the rest of the poem doesn’t match that.

If anyone is or has been paying attention, I’d be interested to know of your favourites from the collection.

Overall, it was an interesting experience. Trying to write a poem a day (on average), together with the fact that I was writing to a given collection of themes — and in sequence (although I didn’t strictly follow this)—made the task a challenge, but the discipline was useful (now if only I could be disciplined with respect to some other goals!). Many of the themes lent themselves to punchline poems, and I confess that in writing one poem a day I couldn’t face taking too many of the themes seriously (I guess I am a frivolous person at heart!). I was already aware of my general tendency to be very literal and obvious in my writing, and this is reflected in quite a few of the poems (subtlety and metaphor are not my strong points). And I can’t talk about the experience without acknowledging my use of online rhyme and synonym sites, without which I might have given up.

So there you go. I’d still like to do a drawing challenge at some stage … but not with this set of themes, I think … and NOT one a day (well, not until I have had a big long rest and recovery period)!