About 12 Degrees & Skiving

12C & Skiving began as a year-long challenge: January 1 2012 – 31December 2012; one poet, one poem a week each for a year, following 52 different poetic forms on any subject.

Following a definite poetic form creates what at first seems like a limitation, a restraint, the muse muzzled and the creative torrent channeled and tamed at best. At worst, twee.  And sometimes, you’ll find, they are twee.

As I write and hone, however, poetic stanzas, meter and rhyme become merely the framework of the doorway I hang onto as I lean out into the world; it’s a skeleton and flesh for the mind and soul to fill, the instrument through which breath and movement are whittled into song. And it’s sudoku for the writing brain.

Some poems are meticulous, others hurried unpolished drafts, and many I will no doubt look back on and cringe…

The purpose of 12C & Skiving was to challenge myself with varying structures and the discipline of writing for myself every day and to have fun along the way. I had fun, so much so that I’ve continued using this space as a place to offer up poetry as I write it.