This August, I take on the Nicole Sealey Reading Challenge! I learned about the challenge from a new Poetry Society of Tennessee member, Maggie Russell. What a wonderful way to help me tackle my (over)growing reading list. Thanks, Maggie!
About the Challenge
The Sealey Reading Challenge is simple, but daunting: read a book a day all August long. I invite you to join me in this quest to read 31 books of poetry. Even if you don’t read poetry. Maybe especially if you don’t, and particularly if some early school experience turned you off of it. The world of poetry is wide. After 31 days of diving into a blend of poetry, you may find you like some of it enough to read more of it! (Not sure where to start? Try the challenge’s start here list.)
The synchronicity of my stack
About the middle of last year, I began collecting books authored by Poetry Society of Tennessee members (there are plenty to choose from). Over the past few years, I have bought chapbooks, collections, and anthologies that caught my attention or came recommended. I’ve been gifted a few, too. Add to that a growing list of books I’ve yet to purchase, and I have plenty of material to dig into.
The start of my August reading stack, some to reread and some to finally read.
I love how this challenge invites me to move into a reading habit with a specific goal to help me focus. I expect to shrink my unread / to-read-again poetic pleasure tower even if I don’t hit the goal.
Am I really #notwriting?
I will at least revise pieces in August (and continue submitting poems to get my 100 rejections this year). But regular reading is the work of a poet, too. We dive into each others’ work and discover unique, cliche’, beautiful, deep, humorous, inspiring, aggravating, moving, amazing poetry. We find all we ever or never thought a poem could be. Maybe we trace eons of craft packed into poems timeless, contemporary, or both. We delight in well thought out arcs in chapbooks and collections and explore how authors thread themes through them. Maybe we bookmark or dog ear pages of our favorites. Or make notes all over the pages. Whatever we do, we carry our experiences and the artifacts of these poetic archeological digs forward with us. So, maybe #writing after all?
What matters more than how we approach poetry is that we approach it. The Nicole Sealey Reading Challenge invites us to quietly engage with the poetry community, learn from each other, share with each other, and become inspired and better read. Thanks, Nicole (and the folks at University of Arizona Poetry Center)! Challenge accepted.
More to love
One more thing to love about the challenge? Even if we fail, we still win if we have read more than we would have. And another? You can play The Sealey Challenge Bingo (see the site for details on how to win prizes).
What are you reading?
If you’re joining me in this challenge (even if you’re not), please share a book or two from your stack in the comments! Let’s help each other discover new poets and poetry.