“With notes, marginalia, daydreaming—
Scrap paper as palette now seeming.
The lim’rick, non-thwartive:
A format supportive
In April’s routine, still-esteeming.”
The 13 April 2025 limerick celebrated the NaPoWriMo writing routine itself, and it seems a fitting place to pause these posts at the end of the Autumn 2025 semester.
“With notes, marginalia, daydreaming— /
Scrap paper as palette now seeming.”
The first two lines here commemorate the fact that NaPoWriMo has become steadily more familiar, as an academic-year tradition.
Nearing April each year, I aim for a starting set of four or five poems; this is part of why I repeat some themes most years. (At my preparatory extreme, in 2019, I made sure to have a set of thirty limericks written before I began, although what I ended up posting in that first go-round included some more spontaneous contributions. This was admittedly excessive!)
In more recent years, I’ve trusted myself to have “enough” inspiration to get through most of April in an ad hoc manner. I thus often find myself jotting down rhymes in the margins of class prep notes or on scrap paper, throughout the month.
“The lim’rick, non-thwartive: /
A format supportive /
In April’s routine, still-esteeming.”
In the years when I have reconsidered trying NaPoWriMo, knowing I was headed into a hectic spring, I have found intriguing rhymes that lend themselves to the AABBA structure within the day. The limerick form is “supportive” and “non-thwartive”; it provides creative adrenaline, allowing me to find interesting inspirations when I’d otherwise feel like I’m running on fumes.
(A sidenote that hadn’t come to mind previously: I suppose that having April 2020 as my second NaPoWriMo attempt will forever cause subsequent “hectic” Aprils to pale in comparison, realistically.)
***
And with that, I’ve reached the end of my scheduled Autumn 2025 posts and the end of autumn classes. I may post occasionally over winter break here; if not, I will resume the NaPoWriMo2025 translations when we all reach 2026.
Chemphasis 