Featured Poet: Skyler Saunders
We recently had the opportunity to interview Skyler Saunders about poetry and their approach to the craft.
Thank you for taking the time to talk to us about your journey as a poet! Can you tell us about your motivation for writing?
For the last year, I’ve been writing and sharing a poem every single day. After I completed National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) in 2020, my partner suggested I should keep going, and write a poem every day for a year. I thought this was an unreachable goal, but I decided I should just try and see what happens. Because of the weird timing with my “year” ending just before NaPoWriMo starts up again for 2021, I’ve actually committed to writing 395 poems in 395 days—and I’m almost done! Being so public about it and posting a poem on Instagram almost every day has really motivated me to write; even if I’m not happy with it, even if I write it in ten minutes and call it done, at least I’m writing something. I have a lot of friends and family cheering me on, and I don't want to let them down by giving up on what I set out to do.
How did you become a poet?
I’ve been writing poems (very) sporadically for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t start writing in earnest until NaPoWriMo in April of 2020. I followed a lot of poets on Instagram, and the prompts they were posting really inspired me to try to participate. On April 1, 2020, I very impulsively decided to commit to the whole month—writing thirty poems in thirty days—and created an Instagram account solely for poetry. I probably should have been calling myself a poet before then, but that’s when it started in earnest. I've fully embraced it now, and it's wild to imagine that only a year ago being a poet wasn't a part of my identity or the way I saw myself. Even if I never wrote another poem again in my life, I think I'd always consider myself a poet.
Has the coronavirus pandemic changed how you approach your craft?
Definitely! Before the pandemic, I was more of a reader and passive member of the poetry community; I would write poems occasionally, but kept them to myself and avoided calling myself a poet. The pandemic is one of the key factors in my decision to actively write and share poetry. I was stuck at home and had a lot more free time than I was used to. It also made me focus a lot more on the Instagram poetry community; interacting with people online was my main form of social contact outside of my family. The pandemic inadvertently caused me to form some of my greatest friendships with poets all around the world, and I’m very grateful for that.
What are you looking forward to?
After finishing up my 395-day poem-a-day venture, I’m looking forward to slowing down on the amount of poems I write, and taking more time with each one. I want to spend weeks or months writing a poem instead of minutes or days. I also hope to publish a book eventually! In the coming months I’ll start thinking more about that, and maybe even start writing one.
Where can readers find more of your work?
At least until the end of April 2021, I’ll be posting a poem every day on my Instagram @skyler.celeste.poetry! After that I’ll still be posting poems there, though less frequently. I also have four poems included in the Spring 2021 Train River Poetry anthology, and have been published in a few other anthologies and magazines that can be found at https://linktr.ee/smilingatmysandwich.
