So you're thinking of participating in the 2017 Poetry Marathon?

So you’re thinking of participating in the 2017 Poetry Marathon in August? 

Ok.  If your answer was yes, you need to take a few things into consideration before deciding if it’s a hard or soft yes.  Lots of people think they are ready or misjudge the rigor of the exercise and drop out.  How do I know?  Last year was my first full marathon and it took a week to recover BUT I am still reaping the rewards from that one 24 hour exercise in artistic torture AND I wouldn’t stop myself from doing it again no matter how much it hurt at the time…like giving birth…we forget the pain and do it again because the outcomes are so awesome.

So you’re thinking of participating in the 2017 Poetry Marathon in August?  There are a few questions you need to ask yourself first to see if you are up for the challenge:  Full or half?  Is this your first go or are you a vet?  Did you give it a try in the past and not complete?  Are you going to write alone or with others around you?  Do you have access to the internet at all times or most of the time?  Will you have a prep regime the month before, the week before, a day before? Are you planning to finish or are you thinking about starting with an “out?” – I’ll just quit if it gets too hard or if life gets in the way. Or I have stuff to do that weekend but I’ll just post poems in between that other stuff.  Yeah. No.  I don’t know how that would be manageable.  Some people last year thought they could do the marathon at a music festival or a family reunion or a wedding?????  Yeah. No.

The marathon is a marathon.  It’s not just poetry so it is easier than a real marathon…I don’t run because this body is built for comfort… but I know people who do and when they prep for a marathon they adhere to a strict training regime.  We have to do that, too.  I didn’t really understand what that would entail.  I thought I would be totally ok because I write a poem a day. How hard could one per hour be, right?  Especially when there are prompts!  It can’t be that hard, can it?  OH, YES IT CAN!

Caitlin gave some really good advice to the Poetry Marathon Universe, in the weeks and days leading up to the marathon, around warming up for the marathon and I took many of them to heart.  I knew that I would have little time to cook and so on so I made three cold salads and made sure to have sandwich foods, snacks and teas on the ready so I just needed to walk to the kitchen and grab what I needed while I let the prompt settle for a bit. 

Sun rise on the marathon morning.

On the morning of the marathon, my time zone started me at 6 am, I woke up an hour early and did some yoga, got my coffee ready, and sat at my table waiting for the first prompt to drop.  I hand write everything first so by the time I wrote, typed, and edited (I do that whilst I type) the hour flew by and a bit of a panic set in that I wouldn’t be able to handle the pace.  Soon I got the rhythm of the morning and all settled in nicely…until the heat came.  At that point, I went for a walk in the local park for some air and a change of scenery.  The prompt was giving me issues, too, so I walked for an hour and went home.  Good idea but it back logged me for a couple of hours and freaked me out that I would never catch up.  I did…after two prompts.

I thought I had hit my stride after that and, I guess I did, but the prompts seem to drag me out more and more and when 6pm rolled around and all of the half marathoners were saying good bye on our fb page, or on our blog page, I fell apart.  I hit the wall. Hard.  All I saw ahead of me was 12 more hours and 12 more prompts and the late hours of night or early hours of morning, in the approaching darkness, fighting exhaustion and I wanted to quit.  Everything in me screamed to just quit…do the half marathon…no shame in that for your first time.  No one will know but you and Caitlin.

Now, if you have ever had the pleasure of meeting Caitlin, you will know that quitting on her is out of the question.  I had only met her on-line last year but I have since met both her and Jacob and, yeah…quitting on her is not an option.

I couldn’t quit on Caitlin and I couldn’t quit on me.  I signed up for the full marathon, I committed to the full marathon, and I would finish the full marathon. Period.  I got my sorry ass off of the couch and asked my husband and my youngest son to go for a walk with me in the forest. 

So back I went to the park to walk off the despair in the cooling twilight of the forest.  By the time I showered after coming back home, I was a new person.  I ate some salad, drank some really nice cold tea, and I found my groove again.

Two important elements saved me from crashing and burning at the wall around hours 12 and 13:  my family’s support and popsicles.  When my husband and son went walking with me, they made me laugh and got me moving so I could leave the doubt behind.  My husband and son went to the local store for slushies and a box of popsicles while I was in the shower so I had some sugar for energy and the cool, half frozen pop kept my body temperature down in the heat.  It was all I needed to keep me going for the rest of the night and into the wee hours. 

I am so glad it did.  My best work was written in hours 17 through 22.  In fact, the first piece I've ever had published was written in hour 17.

As the night progressed and my husband and son slept on the couch bed in the room opposite my writing room, a tone would go off every hour on the hour:  2 am, 3am, 4am, 5am.  My husband would wake up every hour to make sure I was awake for the next prompt and at 5am he congratulated me on completing the marathon…that was the 24^th prompt.

I know I am really lucky to have support from my family.  Many poets don’t.  The key here is don’t write alone.  The Poetry Marathon family is beautiful and compassionate and if you need a booster, they are so happy to do that.  This year when I hit the wall, I will reach out to them, too, because, while my husband and son are awesome cheerleaders and were so amazing to bring me icy treats and walk with me, they aren’t writing. 

In those early, early (or late, late – depending on your perspective) hours when I was the only one awake in the house and I was alone with my music, I needed those people the most and they came through for me.  We became so much more entertaining the more “punch drunk” we became.  I still laugh about some of the stuff we wrote to keep ourselves moving forward to the next prompt.  I still laugh about those early hours but, most of all, I remember how it felt to crawl into bed at 6 am, after sending in my last poem: exhausted and warm and so proud of myself.  I dreamed in poetry that morning.  All of my dreams were in verse.  I even remember dreaming a poem that my Granny gave me.  I was so exhausted, I was open to visitations of loved ones long dead.  It was totally worth it. 

For a week after the marathon, I was wobbly. From the re-jigging of my internal clock? Maybe.  From the ferocious output of creative energy?  Probably.  From the realisation that this one 24 hour period had re-routed my life as a poet and there was no going back?  Definitely. 

For the next few days, I committed myself to reading as many poems from other poets as I could, to give as much feedback as I could, and to contact as many other writers as was possible in the regular ebb and flow of my day.  I made so many connections which have lasted to this day, which have bolstered me and given me courage to move forward as an artist.  I was invited into a community of poets where I was mentored around self-publishing so that I have had my first chap book of poems out on amazon.com for a couple of months and ready to build the next one.One of my poems was chosen by Caitlin for the Poetry Marathon anthology which led to my first poetry reading. 

In one year I was published for the first time, reading for the first time, and selling my work for the first time…all born out of that 24 hour period of anguish.

So you’re thinking of participating in the 2017 Poetry Marathon in August?  You need to know that the organisers, who are saints, have set a goal of completion for this year’s participants.  You need to know that if you commit to the exercise, we are all going to expect that you are going to cross the finish line at hour 12 or 24.  You need to know that we will all be here to cheer you on, throw water on you, get you Gatorade…ewww … no …whatever you need to hydrate.  We will electronically hold your hand or grab you by the elbow and drag you with us. We will make you laugh when you want to quit.  We will make you weep with joy when you don’t.  We will become the family you never knew you wanted but never knew you needed so much.  We got you.

So you’re thinking of doing the 2017 Poetry Marathon?  If you are, you need to ask yourself if you are in it to finish.  You will never know just how committed you are to your art until you do. 

Come on in.  We got you!