Today I will be gathering the notebooks and writing utensils I will need for the next 30 days. I will also be preparing my writing space.

I wanted to post pictures of the above. But I don't think I will get around to it.
If I do I will tack them onto the bottom of this post.

To get myself in a poetry mindset I have been listening to and reading poems. I happen to come across an article called "How to Write a Poem" and I decided it wouldn't hurt to take a look. The first step was to listen to poetry. So far I have already fell in love with a new poet via Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. (Have you ever listened to that podcast? I totally love it, it always sets my mind spinning in wonderful places.) The poet's name is W. S. Merwin and here is his poem called "Echoing Light" to get you too in the mood for poetry.

ECHOING LIGHT

When I was beginning to read I imagined
that bridges had something to do with birds
and with what seemed to be cages but I knew
that they were not cages it must have been autumn
with the dusty light flashing from the streetcar wires
and those orange places on fire in the pictures
and now indeed it is autumn the clear
days not far from the sea with a small wind nosing
over dry grass that yesterday was green
the empty corn standing trembling and a down
of ghost flowers veiling the ignored fields
and everywhere the colors I cannot take
my eyes from all of them red even the wide streams
red it is the season of migrants
flying at night feeling the turning earth
beneath them and I woke in the city hearing
the call notes of the plover then again and
again before I slept and here far downriver
flocking together echoing close to the shore
the longest bridges have opened their slender wings