AtoZ April Challenge 2015 - Reflections

I started POETICbug on March, 2013. While searching for contests and challenges to participate I came across AtoZ Challenge. I found it, not just a challenging but an interesting concept. I wanted to test if I could survive through a month of continuous blogging along with my day job. That's how I enrolled myself for the first time in this challenge and successfully completed it earning the "Survivor" badge. It was definitely a satisfying moment for me. It was my first year and so I did not have any theme for myself except that I have to sail through this challenge. This challenge motivated me to write and more importantly read more poems. I came across a lot of others poets across the world whose feedback and encouraging comments helped me improve on my skills.

Again in the year 2014, I registered for the challenge. I chose a theme of writing Haiku as I was researching on the same type of poetry. But unfortunately I yielded after alphabet "T" and could not complete the challenge.

Yet, this fact did not deter me from joining the challenge again this year, 2015. I kept myself more disciplined this time around with a strong determination of completing the challenge, whatsoever. I chose to contain my poems in six lines by writing "Hexoems" (Hexa+Poem), something I loosely coined. It was hard to sum up the emotions in 6 lines and control the urge to write beyond that. But I managed to do so, sometimes with aplomb and other times in doubt. This year's participation was even more necessary and helpful for me because I had just moved out of India to the US. I had to overcome the homesickness I was feeling the entire day and being engrossed in Arlee Bird's A to Z Challenge helped me a lot.

There were fellow bloggers whose posts and reactions on my posts, I eagerly waited to read. A big hug and thank you to SHALIJAY, SHANTALA, SHASHANK, ARPITA, HANEEN, DONNA, ARCHANA, FRANCENE, CHRYS, JYOTSNA, for being so kind with their words towards my writing. Also thank you to each one of you who visited my blog randomly, but left a comment for me. Your comments were a constant motivation.

The top 3 visited poems of the AtoZ Challenge 2015 lot on my blog were -
Beside you, Getting over you and Zipper

The top 3 commented poems of the AtoZ Challenge 2015 lot on my blog were -
Beside you, Miss you and (Drawer of fear, Pleasant moment)

The very next day when this challenge ended I got a wonderful mail from the Baggout team. POETICbug was featured in their Top 16 Poetry Blogs In India. So, as far as I am concerned, this year's AtoZ Challenge ended as an all around satisfying experience for me with the "Survivor" badge again and being listed in the Baggout top bloggers list.

This post is submitted to 2015 A to Z Blogging Challenge Reflections.

Image Credits - A to Z Challenge Team
Post © Copyright Salvwi Prasad (POETICbug)