What the Heck Do I Write About?

I’ve gotta say: writing for a half-hour a day has been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. At the same time, it’s been quite rewarding. Most days, I spend that half-hour fine-tuning the poems that I want to enter into the USPS annual poetry contest. Every now and then, though, I get a new poem out of the mix. So it’s been worthwhile, all in all.

Just for fun, I thought I’d take a quick look at the subjects of the poems I’ve been giving the most attention, as well as a few of the newer poems I’ve written. Recently I’ve been writing about:

The “Bloody Mary” urban legend
Captain America
Drawing a fat man
A porcelain doll
Dentists
Catholic priests
Oranges
An Old Testament prophet minutes away from getting stoned – and not in the fun way
A woman in a car accident
Abortion
Rain
Idolatry
Washing dishes
Bread
Sitting on the lawn, doing nothing
Math
A dead dog
Beheading
Ducks
Grasshoppers
A grumpy old man
Improv theater

A lot of these poems I first wrote about two and-a-half years ago, right around the time that I started taking my poetry writing seriously. I read these poems about a month ago and HATED them. I decided to rewrite them completely from scratch, without really referring to the original drafts. I then made a THIRD draft by combining the best elements of both versions. I’ve been very satisfied with the results.