NaPoWriMo 2011.

April is finished and so therefore is "National Poetry Writing Month."

Out of the 30 days of April, I only missed one; the 16th.

That's 29 poems in 30 days.

(Well, I see it more as being 28&1/2 due to the fact that I only got halfway thru my idea for the 30th poem, but that's just me being picky really.)

Sure, a lot of them need quite a bit of editing and rewriting if I'm gonna use them going forward, but looking at it in that way, I now have a bank of drafts and ideas that I can work on and hopefully make into some pretty decent poems. I'm really looking forward to seeing where some of these go.

(I've done some of them as they are in performances and they seem to have gone down pretty well already, so fingers crossed...)

I'm actually really proud of myself for having done it. Whenever I decide I'm gonna do one of these challenges, I never seem to make it more than a third of the way thru. The fact that I actually stuck with this to the end is pretty awesome for me.

If you fancy having a read of them, they are at my tumblr blog here: http://paulaskew.tumblr.com/

Some of them are humourous, some aren't supposed to be. Some are pretty bad, but others are alright actually. And there are only 2 or 3 that I really hate.

Go on, shoo. There's a good reader.

30 Day Song Challenge: 30

Day 30: Your favourite song at this time last year.

Oneohtrix Point Never - "Hyperdawn"

I was actually sad enough to go into my last.fm page and look up what I was listening to in April last year because I couldn't think of what to put for this one. There wasn't really any one artist or song I listened to significantly more than any other. So I looked at what I listened to on April 30th last year, just to be really pedantic. Turns out I listened to a lot of Oneohtrix Point Never that day, so I've picked my favourite song from the album "Rifts." Enjoy.

(Sadly the sound quality of tis vid isn't great, but it's the only vid I can find on YouTube for it, so it has to do. Listen anyway, it's a fucking great track.)

and with that, we are done. Sorry if this whole thing got tedious. I hope there were enough songs you liked to make it worth it.

30 Day Song Challenge: 29

Day 29: A song from your childhood.

MC Hammer - "U Can't Touch This"

The first album I ever bought was MC Hammer's "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em" when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I got it on cassette. The album has a song on it called "She's Soft And Wet." I had no idea what it meant, I genuinely thought it must be about someone who was caught out in the rain or something. People always think I'm joking when I say that, but I was 9 or 10. What else was I gonna think it was about?

Anyway, I played that album a hell of a lot. I loved it, and of course this was the song I loved the most off it. Still makes me smile a bit when I hear it.

30 Day Song Challenge: 26, 27 & 28.

Day 26: A song that you can play on an instrument.

Day 27: A song that you wish you could play.

Day 28: A song that makes you feel guilty.

Okay. I can't play an instrument, which means that pretty much every song I like is one I wish I could play.

And, a song that makes me feel guilty?! What?! That is one of the most stupid things I have ever read.

30 Day Song Challenge: 25

Day 25: A song that makes you laugh.

Ivor Cutler - "Bicarbonate Of Chicken"

I love Ivor Cutler. Poet, humourist, musician, etc, he is a legend and an idol of mine. This song is possibly my favourite of his. My poetry tutor at college in an effort to get me into poetry lent me some Ivor Cutler albums. The first one I listened to was 'Jammy Smears' which this is the first track of. The rest as they say, is history. Enjoy.

30 Day Song Challenge: 23 & 24.

Day 23: A song that you want to play at your wedding.

Day 24: A song that you want to play at your funeral.

I'm really getting quite bored of this "Challenge" right now. The categories have just become annoying and vague. I don't know the answers to these.

30 Day Song Challenge: 20, 21 & 22.

Day 20: A song you listen to when you're angry.
Day 21: A song you listen to when you're happy.

Day 22: A song you listen to when you're sad.

These would be pretty subjective and depending on what mood I was in at the time. Especially angry and sad. my choice would depend on whether I wanted to stay angry or sad, or whether I was trying to cheer myself up. I can't seem to answer these at the moment.

30 Day Song Challenge: 19

Day 19: A song from your favourite album.

Spiritualized - "Broken Heart"

I could never decide on one definite album that I preferred over all others. I would answer differently depending on what day you asked me. One of my favourites was Spiritualized's "Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space." When Sweet G took me to see them performing this album at the Barbican about a year and a half ago now, it was pretty much the best gig ever and cemented this album as the one above all others in my mind. I adore this album. Utterly adore it. I don't think I have a favourite song from it, I think the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and it's the album as a whole taken as one piece of work that is simply phenomenal, but I think this probably works best as a song to be singled out of the context of the rest of the album.

30 Day Song Challenge: 18

Day 18: A song that you wish you heard on the radio.

The Unthanks - "Gan To The Kye"

What? That's a really dumb category. Okay, well I'm just gonna say this because I'm a little obsessed with this song at the moment. It's the first song from their new album 'Last' and I think it's an absolutely beautiful song. I especially love the strings.

I have no idea what happened with the previous posts. I appear to have been saving them rather than publishing them, like some sort of massive eejit. They're all up now anyway.

30 Day Song Challenge: 17

Day 17: A song that you hear often on the radio.

Cee-Lo Green - "Bright Lights Bigger City"

I don't listen to the radio very often, but I seem to hear this quite a lot when I do. I quite like it, but the chorus really reminds me of the chorus of the song "In The Crossfire" by Starsailor. Can anyone else hear it or is it just me?