Jan 2011: month of poetry

Writers from across the interwebs are signing up to make January 2011 the Month Of Poetry.

I really shouldn't sign up. I signed up for Nanowrimo and, despite having an almost decent premise for my novel, didn't write a single lone motherless word. Diddly. Not a sausage. Sweet Fanny Adams. Bugger all.

I also work full time, live alone, have a disability, and have dedicated 2011 to sorting out my health and my (lack of) a social life. I'm also very, very very late with a story I've promised someone and just can't deliver. The last thing I have time for is more writing.

But recently I rediscovered just how much I love poetry. I did a round of the local op-shops on the first day of my holidays, to remind myself just how much I don't like poking through other people's grubby secondhand detritus looking for 'bargains'.

There were some great books on offer, though - Harry Potters for $2 a pop, old craft books that will bring hours of laughter for just $1 investment, and best of all the complete poetical works of Byron For 50c.

I'd never really read Byron. He was a bit like Will Ferrel - I'm vaguely aware he exists and what he does, but if you asked me to name a film he's been in (or a poem he wrote) I couldn't. Now I have met his writing, though, I love it and am slightly addicted, reading when I should be eating or sleeping or getting the house clean for Christmas.

Yet why should I mingle in fashion's full herd?

Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules?

Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd?

Why search for delight in the friendship of fools?

What's not to love? I adore the rhythm of his works, even if some of the rhyme seems a little dodgy by 21st century standards - did 'grove' really rhyme with 'love' when spoken with a 19th century tongue?

So, anyway. Month of Poetry. I'm more likely to bash out 31 unsteady haiku than anything remotely akin to the contents of this lovely old blue book, but I'm in.