During the next three weeks, a crazy guy named Ed DeCaria at ThinkKidThink is hosting a bracket of 64 poets to stand up to the test of writing a children's poem with a word given at random, and competing in a bracket (a la the March madness basketball tournament). He may be a basketball fan, but is possibly even more of a poetry fan. Crazy me, I joined the group, and if there really is safety in numbers, there are sixty-three others whose names are also on that bracket. Want to know more? Click on the blog's link. Those in the first round received their word last night, but I won't receive my word until tonight. Thanks to everyone who is slicing for through your words I'm learning to be a better writer every day. I need all the help I can get!
I have anxiety attacks
when contemplating
competition.
(What if they are so much better?)
I want my performance
to be
the
very
best.
(But when the phrases bend left,
and the rhymes feel stretched)
I wonder how others
will perceive words
I have written?
(Will there really be a gold star?)
Then,
I tell myself:
Settle down,
relax,
(Take deep breaths, or is it deep kneebends?)
Write only for
improvement.
The formal slip states:
It is permitted
to be less
than perfect.
I earn
a large pat
on the back.
(Better than disquiet,
better than worry.)
I have grown a little more.