NaPoWriMo
Quick answer: NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Writing Month, challenges poets to write thirty poems in thirty days each April. Learn the rules, the history and how to finish.
NaPoWriMo, short for National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual challenge in which poets attempt to write one poem a day for the thirty days of April. Poet Maureen Thorson started it in 2003, borrowing the model of National Novel Writing Month, and it has grown into a worldwide ritual, sometimes carrying the more accurate name GloPoWriMo for its global reach. There are no judges, no fees and no prizes: the only opponent is the blank month.
Poets return to it year after year because volume changes you. Thirty drafts in thirty days forces you past your habits by around day nine, past your taste by day seventeen, and into genuinely unfamiliar territory before the month ends. Most of the thirty poems will be compost. Three or four may be keepers, which is a good year by any standard.
How the Challenge Works
The rules are self-imposed and simple: draft one new poem each day in April. The unofficial home of the challenge posts a daily optional prompt, and countless blogs, journals and forums run their own. Some poets publish each day's draft online; others, wary that posting counts as prior publication with many journals, keep drafts private and share only word counts and complaints.
Nobody verifies anything. Skipped a day? Write two tomorrow or shrug. The challenge is a scaffold, not a contract.
Surviving All Thirty Days
Finishers tend to do three things. They lower the bar for a daily draft, accepting six honest lines as a poem for now. They stockpile prompts, titles and stray images in March so no morning starts from zero. And they attach the writing to an existing habit, the commute, the kettle, the last thing before sleep, instead of waiting for free time that April will not provide.
The real skill NaPoWriMo teaches is separating drafting from judging. You write tonight; the editor in you is not allowed in the room until May.
What to Do with Thirty Drafts
May is for triage. Read the month's work in one sitting and sort it into three piles: alive, salvageable for parts, and honourably dead. Revise the living ones slowly through summer. A revised April poem makes a strong contest entry, and since Writory opens entries on the 1st of every month, your best NaPoWriMo survivor can be polished and submitted while its energy is fresh.
What poets can take from this
- Collect thirty prompts before April begins, even if you only use ten.
- Set a minimum you can hit on your worst day, such as six lines, and count it as done.
- Do not revise during April; drafting and editing use different muscles and April is leg day for drafting.
- Keep drafts offline if you hope to submit them later, since many journals treat public posts as published.
- Read one poem by someone else each day to keep your ear fed.
Try it yourself
Practise the NaPoWriMo pace for one week instead of a month: seven poems in seven days, each one begun from the last line of the previous day's draft.
Questions
What does NaPoWriMo stand for?
National Poetry Writing Month. It is the poetry counterpart of NaNoWriMo, the novel-writing challenge, and runs through April alongside National Poetry Month. The variant GloPoWriMo, Global Poetry Writing Month, acknowledges that participants now come from everywhere.
Do NaPoWriMo poems have to be good?
No, and expecting them to be is the main reason people quit. The challenge builds drafting stamina; quality is revision's job in May. Most participants aim for thirty honest attempts and are pleased if a handful deserve a second life.
If I post my NaPoWriMo poems online, can I still submit them to journals?
Often not, because many journals and contests count publicly posted work as previously published. If you want to submit your April drafts later, share them only in closed groups or keep them on your own hard drive.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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