Back in late January 2013, I was nearing the end of my A.A. program at St. Petersburg College and applying to universities for my BA degree in English. My writer/poet/editor friend and tarot goddess from Down Under, Jodi Cleghorn and another friend, Adam Byatt, were posting on Facebook and Twitter that they were going to start a monthly poetry challenge in February called "Post-It Note Poetry" for those who wanted to participate in writing and posting online, snaps of their daily post-it rhymes.

It didn't have to be good. Just write a poem every day and post it online.

I started then and I have taken part of the challenge every year since.

It has not always been easy. But it has always been a challenge and it has always been fun. Being a college student, I was often unable to commit to writing a poem each day in February. Books had to be read and essays had to be written. Tests had to be taken.

But I managed to write some few poems every year and had some fabulous years in 2015 and 2021. The year 2021 had me focusing on Japanese haiku, senryu, tanka, and other short form poems. I ended up writing enough poems for three or four Post-It Note challenges. 2022 was a themed year with the theme of forbidden/desire. I wrote about being in love with monsters/cryptids...ummm, yes, even erotic love. (Hello, Mothman, dearest...).

In 2023, the new theme will be randomness/eloquence. And I like that. I already have ideas and notes on poems I want to write. In one poem in 2021, I channeled William Carlos Williams in my broken wheelbarow haiku. Recently, I re-read Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,' and the ideas and words started flowing like buttah. Except, the poetry I'm planning are linked haiku/senryu in three stanzas. I'm planning on writing a few of those. Who knows, maybe another monster or two will slip in from the forest. It should be fun!

I want to write more tanka. I need to write more tanka. I need to write a decent Fibonacci poem. I want to write another poem to my first love, Nikolai Tesla. And I want to write more octain (a form I invented, kind of Fibonacci-ish) and definitely more haiku and senryu.

Meanwhile, I'm still working on getting my first short poetry ebook and my first ebook of previously published speculative fiction and poetry up on Amazon (for starters). Four & Twenty Blackbirds and little paper parasols will be released soon. Stay tuned for further updates and information!