Creative Intention Setting - February
HARD THINGS
Submitting to Journals - 0
Writing a poetry collection - 3 new drafts
Read more poetry - 1 collection
Go to more open mics - 3 (up 50%)
Get feedback - 0
Spontaneous poetry - 22
Get paid - small profit from the OV
TikTok - BIG NO
Posting Socials - 5 personal / 8 OV
Self- promotion - 0
Finish the book - 0
Networking - Keith’s big WhatsApp group / Slam / GPC / DAL
Poetry Slam Competitions - Mind Over Slammer
Writing down all of my ideas - not very good
Organising my drive - 0
February has mostly been taken up with running Season 2 of the Orange Verse. It takes up a lot of time and energy. I love doing it and it feeds into all three of my core values: Meaningful Work, Openness and Community. However, it does take away from my other goals.
Saying that, I’ve crossed off some big things in February:
Getting paid
Poetry Slam Competitions
Networking
Of course, these things are never finished but now they have mutated. I will come back to them at the end of the quarter when I do a big check in and decide if my Hard Things are working for me or against me.
Let’s dig in to the things I’ve crossed off:
1. Getting Paid
At the end of February, I kicked off Season 2 of the Orange Verse, a series of live Zoom workshops taking place on a Monday night. There are three 1.5 hour sessions with an open mic taking place on March 18th to round it off.
This is the first time I’ve asked for money from anyone for any service I’ve provided, so it’s a big win. Overall people paid me £120 but after you take off all my expenses (web hosting, Zoom, transaction fees, etc) I came out with £35. That’s not a lot considering all the hours I put into creating the content and delivering the sessions (probably less than £1 ph).
But, some money is better than no money and I’m having such a great time exploring poetry and building a community of poets who want to push themselves and write out of their comfort zones. You’ve got to start somewhere.
2. Poetry Slam Competitions
I did my first ever slam on Valentine’s Day. It was an experience. I wrote about it here.
3. Networking
At the slam I met a lovely man, Keith Fenton, who is doing wonderful things for the poetry scene in Leeds (where the slam was held). He talks about it like cross-pollinating all the different open mics and he’s branching out across the whole of the North.
He’s created a WhatsApp group of circa 250 poets, musicians and artists. In this group, people share their artistic projects and events and people are collaborating and doing great stuff. I feel privileged to be part of it.
I’ve also done, what Keith Jarrett calls ‘put, this month. ‘Put is not in-put or out-put, but a different kind of work that’s just living as a poet and being involved in the poetry community. Going to poetry events is part of the ‘put, supporting other poets is part of the ‘put. You’re not doing anything other than to show up as a poet in life. So, this month I attended the Give Poetry a Chance 5th birthday celebration. I didn’t read, I didn’t talk to anyone I didn’t already know, but it was showing up. More of this.
