NaPoWriMo Day 4: In his poem “The Wasteland,” T.S. Eliot famously declared that “April is the cruelest month.” But is it? I’d have thought February. Today I challenge you to write a poem in which you explore what you think is the cruelest month, and why. Perhaps it’s September, because kids have to go back to school. Or January, because the holidays are over and now you’re up to your neck in snow. Or maybe it’s a month most people wouldn’t think of (like April), but which you think of because of something that’s happened in your life. Happy (or, if not happy, not-too-cruel) writing!

March is the cruelest month

Though I never thought so before

Unless the reason one could say

Spring had yet to sprung

As it often rains in Oregon

Or waiting for my April birthday

To celebrate me with fierce insistence

While this March I enjoyed the sun

Took a trip to Mexico and had a little fun

My love was so far away

It was not the miles so much

But the distance

~Just L (April 4, 2016)