Perhaps I should feel bad for saying this before I finish participating in the 30 poems in 30 days project (a fundraising endeavor prompted by Northampton poet laureate Leslea Newman), but I don't. In fact, I feel utterly relieved in getting this out in the open: I have produced a couple of okay starting points for good poems since Nov. 1. But both of them are buried deep in a stinking pile of useless poetic dreck.

This, naturally, makes me wonder about the efficacy of such an approach. Novels, certainly, are usually written in such a shoot from the hip, aim later fashion. And, as the teacher who influenced me most said, "Writing is rewriting." But it is hard to express the utter dreckiness of the particular dreck which has bubbled up from my versifying pen under pressure. I've become the Old Faithful of bad poetry. I've become a poetaster wrapped in a hack inside Rod McKuen.

This is bad for the ego, and worse for any unsuspecting reader who might discover these starts buried deep in a landfill in the late 28th century. Writing so much poetry so fast creates a conundrum which no one should have to face. Having produced the material, one must then choose. Is all of this writing nothing but bad? That way lies depression, oblivion, and reconsidering that abandoned career in management.

Is this a pure outflowing of some vital "essence de poet," something which should remain pure? That way lies madness, delusion, and telling half-baked admirers "I've got notebooks full of this stuff." Come to think of it, this may account for the flooding of current literary markets with reams upon reams of forgettable poetry fresh from the fevered brains of Jim Morrison wannabes.

Is it, then, some poetry with potential that needs an awful lot of work, mixed in with stuff best unmentioned? That's the best choice, it seems. But wading through that much mediocrity often stains the pants beyond salvaging, and the pressure of making so many decisions to toss out lines or whole poems is an ongoing headache. Fiction almost has to be produced this way, lest a novel take decades, but poetry? At least for me, my 30 days are turning into 30 lessons in how not to become William Butler Yeats.

The poet Stanley Kunitz said, at least according to the Poetry Speaks calendar, "You have to remove the top of your head and plunge into the deep waters of the buried life in order to come up with words that are fresh and shining. Poetry can't be written on a schedule."

Darned if he isn't right, especially if you insert the word "good" just before "poetry." In these very pages some years ago, local poet Martin Espada, in an open letter to Nike, said poems aren't pop tarts. To which I say, "Hear, hear!" (I think these are the reasons why I have yet to hear poets talking about deadline pressure from anxious poetry editors.)

When I started this process, a poet friend and I discussed it. He said he was concerned this kind of project might "diminish the enterprise." By which he meant it might make writing good poetry seem much easier than it really is. He too, I'm convinced, is right. He's right because it takes a practiced, discerning eye to realize where the pearls hide among all the hogswallop. And the nature of such forced creative output is often hogswallop, whether that's clear at the time or not.

I believe that there is some measure of objectivity that can be attained in the judging of poetry. Regardless of one's likes and dislikes, a poem that employs imagery to communicate in a clear and specific way can be told from a poem that stacks up vagueness to create a fluffy nothing. Possessing the meta skill, the discipline of making that judgment about one's own work, is, for my money, what separates the Emily Dickinsons of the world from the William McGonagalls.

Leslea Newman's idea is still laudable, and was certainly worth undertaking. What I've learned is invaluable, and others will no doubt learn other lessons. Newman is brave for suggesting it, braver still for undertaking it (repeatedly, in her case). I'm even sure that some Valley poet will gasp across the finish line of this 30-poem endeavor clutching a handful of verse the likes of which haven't been seen since Billy S. compared someone to a summer's day.

It's just a bit dangerous is all—how many new ways to create bad poems will be unleashed upon the world?

Well, if you pry open the locked drawer at an undisclosed location where I've stashed my November output, I promise you can get a good start at counting the ways.