Since I cannot spend my summer at the beach stalking sea turtles and super-intelligent kelp, I do the next best thing: work out so I could, in theory, spend the summer looking good at the beach. Except of course I am an intellectual, so I work out some non-traditional parts of the body.

Enter my friend Sarah Green, who invited me to a superb summer online road trip. It’s a blog collaborative called Your Best Beach Body: A 100 Day Poetry Challenge.

Here’s the description from the site:

Extremely fit poets grapple with new poems and slippery watermelons in swimming pools from May 15 to August 22. WORKOUT RULES: Each poet will post one new poem per day. “Poem” may be defined loosely. Must have been written within 24 hours of day posted. Must not be written in invisible ink. May be written in languages other than English. Poets may leave challenge and return to challenge at any time.

That’s it! Pretty simple, 7 or 8 of us submitting poems every day (kinda) and leaving friendly, clever comments and criticisms. Just goes to prove you don’t have to go far from home to take a summer writing vacation. Friends and a blog address are all that are needed.

To read my poems, go to the blog and click the label “Joe.” Also check out Sarah’s, she’s pretty straight-up genius.

Tags:   beach · greased melons · poetry · rock hard abs · Travel Week1 Comment