the stafford challenge
“The Stafford Challenge is a commitment to writing a poem every day for a year, starting January 17, 2024, inspired by the legendary poet William Stafford, who made it a practice to craft a daily poem.”
I don’t plan to post every single poem, but you’ll probably see more poetry here than usual. Two days down, 364 to go (it’s a leap year!). So far, I’ve found it a helpful way to loosen up the writing paralysis that plagued me the last few months.
I’ve heard the example of a teacher giving one class the task to create the perfect bowl, and another class the task to create as many bowls as possible. The first class need only produce one perfect bowl to get an A, and the second class needed to have quantity- 50lbs of bowls equaled an A, 40 equaled a B, etc.
“Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”1
“Grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay” describes my current writing rut, so for this season, I’m going to be focusing on quantity! Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland