“Concurrent with April’s start, breaking;
Endeavor’s syllabic placemaking
Finds light-verse-attempting
With STEM intercepting;
Fifth chemical-verse undertaking.”
As the cycle of an academic year returns to its starting line with the beginning of classes, it makes sense to restart these weekly posts, as well. The 1 April 2023 Twitter limerick marked the start of my fifth attempt at completing the routines of National Poetry Writing Month (also known as NaPoWriMo).
“Concurrent with April’s start, breaking…”
With my own creative writing, the start of each April since 2019 has also brought the start of this poetic effort. In NaPoWriMo, the goal is to complete one poem per day, resulting in thirty new poems over the month of April.
“Endeavor’s syllabic placemaking /
Finds light-verse-attempting /
With STEM intercepting…”
Finding different ways to describe this April routine, without repeating past words or phrasings, has been an intriguing challenge as synonyms for “poem” and “verse” quickly dwindle. “Syllabic placemaking” was a new descriptor. (I should also note that the actual poem accidentally used “attempt” twice in two lines, so I am glad for the chance to revise slightly here!)
The third and fourth lines sum up the perpetual goal of this writing project: to use the accessible structures of limericks and other light verse to communicate scientific concepts more effectively (“light-verse-attempting with STEM intercepting”).
“Fifth chemical-verse undertaking.”
Because my NaPoWriMo attempts began back in 2019, this 2023 trial marks the fifth such attempt at a scientific poetry project. This is a rather predictable essay, as it’s now one of multiple posts introducing such a month-long April effort! However, it is still useful to find some space for creative writing as the academic year “circles back”— as autumn classes and meetings begin yet again (as described by one of the most ubiquitous workplace-email phrases for revisiting a topic). Future weeks will have more of a chemistry-specific theme.
Chemphasis 