Poets compete to complete April Writing Challenge

With everybody stuck indoors for the foreseeable, many are seeking new, interesting, and accessible ways to fight loneliness and engage their brains during these difficult weeks.

The team behind Loud Poets, a Scottish spoken word collective, are aiming to complete a mammoth writing task over the next month and are encouraging everybody to join in.

NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) is an annual event in which people challenge themselves to write a new poem every day in the month of April. With daily prompts shared on Twitter and Instagram, each member of the Loud Poets team needs to complete a new poem every day – and there are consequences if they fail.

In their introductory podcast, the team introduce themselves and discuss their thoughts and concerns on the project. As well as the four usual Loud Poets (Katie Ailes, Kevin Mclean, Mark Gallie and Bex Sherwood), the fifth member Perry Jonsson is the Director of Film, and hasn’t really written any poetry before.

The team also gave each other forfeits to motivate each other through the fear of retribution. These are poetic challenges that would be difficult to complete even without the brief timeframe.

Fortunately, they are inviting everyone to get involved with the writing and not the punishments. They would love for more people of all ages to join in and think it would be a great way for children to practice creative writing and their literacy skills while they are out of school. The prompts are all child-friendly.

The challenge started on 1 April, and one member of the team will be sharing their successes and their struggles every day on the Instagram Story.

Follow them on Instagram at @IAmLoudPro, on Twitter at @IAmLoudPro, or listen to their podcast.

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