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Thoughts from a Writing Challenge<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>by Lisa Low<\/em><\/p>\n This January, I decided to write a poem a day for a month (\u00e0 la NaPoWriMo) with a couple of friends. I thought of this as exercise\u2014something I didn\u2019t want to do but knew would be good for me. And like exercise, I wanted instant gratification and endorphins. Instead, I experienced daily writing as another way to approach myself, both the good and bad. Some thoughts from the month:<\/p>\n When the month is over, I\u2019m spent. I celebrate with boba from the newly-opened Kung Fu Tea a mile away. I haven\u2019t taken stock of the revision ahead of me yet, the inevitable cutting and throwing away\u2014that I can\u2019t just throw my poems up into the air and watch them fall into place, a manuscript. Right now, the sugar and treating myself are enough like endorphins.<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Lisa Low<\/strong>\u00a0was born and raised in Maryland.\u00a0Her poems have appeared in Vinyl, The Journal, Entropy, The Collagist,<\/em> and elsewhere. A graduate of Indiana University\u2019s MFA program, she is a PhD candidate and Yates Fellow at the University of Cincinnati.<\/p>\n *Low\u2019s poems appear in Issue 42.1 of\u00a0Cream City Review<\/em>.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most days are unspectacular, but on the worst days, nothing is in my fingers. Or in my brain. I don\u2019t like anything I\u2019ve written, so I repeatedly type and backspace the way I tell my students not to do during in-class writing activities. I click through old poems nostalgically as if to harness the magic of a moment when something sprang forth out of nothing. I feel like I\u2019ll never write something good again. It\u2019s as if negative self-talk itself will produce the poem…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37709,"featured_media":3183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n\n