Sealey Challenge 2025 Wrapped!

Stats, what I learned, funny bits, and connections - and will I do it again?

This is the first year I tried to do the Sealey Challenge, and while I “succeeded” — honestly, anyone reading any poetry anytime is a win for them, for poetry, and for the world! — there are things I’d rather do differently.

EDIT: I’ve added the actual list of books, below the picture 🤦🏼‍♀️.

What I Learned

It doesn’t take that long to read a book of poetry

I timed almost every day’s book, and only two of them came in over an hour (and not much over).

Reading some poetry every day is amazing

I already knew this, but it’s an easy habit to let slip with everything else going on.

Most of the work was in the extra bits I added

Which included:

• Taking a photograph of the books all lined up, so I could…

  • Blank out titles (but not publishers) to give readers a chance to guess at book titles and/or publishers.
    Nobody tried guessing, so this was wasted effort.

  • Use Photoshop to create a whole bunch of layers so I could day-by-day reveal another slice of the book collection.
    This was fun, and I learned some new tricks in Photoshop, so I wouldn’t call it a complete waste. But I’m not sure it was any better for readers than just showing the book cover (which I also did).

  • Extract the colors to make an email banner for each day, complete with contrasting text for the day.
    I thought this was a nice visual effect, but was it worth the work? Probably not, especially combined with all the other shenanigans I was pulling off.

• Creating a somewhat elaborate post with each book’s data, two photos (one spine reveal, one cover), brief commentary on the book, and links to the publisher, the book on Bookshop.org (if possible), and the author’s website (if possible).
  Looking back, this seems over the top. It might’ve been more manageable without the additional work around photos and banners.

• Coming up with pithy taglines on each email, referencing (or excerpted from) the book in non-spoiler ways.
  This is not as easy as it seems it should be (or as I wish it were). And I’m not sure how much they added to the reader experience.

• Posting a link to main posts on various social media sites (Notes, LinkedIn, Instagram/Facebook, and Bluesky)

• When I put up Instagram Stories, I carefully chose the music to match the book — title or theme or (ideally) some of both.
  While this definitely took some time and effort, this was one of the most fun bits for me, so I don’t regret it. I also know that in at least one case, the song I chose deeply affected someone else, which is part of the whole point of any of this, isn’t it? Art? At least for me.
  I could sit alone in my room and masturbate (which admittedly can be a bit of an art) if I didn’t care how what I did affected other people. I make art for humans.
  Added bonus: I added all my Sealey Challenge stories to a Highlight collection, so I (or anyone else) can go back and check them out at will. (More than once I’ve gone back through to listen to the songs I chose and see if I can remember exactly which book they refer to. I think I did pretty well.)

• When posting on Instagram or Bluesky, I also took pains to find and tag the publisher and/or author, if either was on those platforms.
  Annoying, but also this feels like part of the reason I am on social media at all—to be in conversation with other artists.

One unfortunate side effect of posting to all these other social media platforms was that it sent me down rabbit holes more often than usual—because so many terrible things are happening in the world, and I wasn’t able to just avoid social media any day in August.

Some funny things that happened

• One of the books I had checked out from the library had a piece of paper between the pages. The paper had the name of a poet friend of mine! We both laughed about it 😂. What are the odds?

• I only today went back to add all of these books to my spreadsheet of books I have read (which covers the last 15 years…there are a lot). That was when I found out I’d already read one of the books! And actually not that long ago. Huh. 🤷🏼‍♀️

• I read one of the poetry books (Day 28) the day after I’d heard its author read poems from that very same book in a Zoom meeting.

My favorite book?

Nah, not doing that. I read some great collections of poetry, and some great poems, and saw many ways to build both of those things, and deeply appreciated the experience. I don’t think it’s possible to choose a “best,” and probably not useful if I did. At least half of these I’d be happy to read again someday. (Will I? Most of them, probably not—there’s a lot of poetry out there that I haven’t read yet. Anyone for a book swap?)

My favorite experience?

I ended up talking with a few of the authors, which was fun. But the best conversation was with Susan L. Leary, author of Dressing the Bear; we talked about her brother, who shone brightly in the poetry collection and in her memory; it was a really lovely connection to make. And if it were the only result of the whole month, it would make it all worth it.

Will I do it again next year?

Right now, I’m included to say I probably will. Probably a more stripped-down version (no Photoshopped daily reveals, for one). Some internal, easier algorithm for pithy email taglines—the first line of the first poem, something like that. But the poetry—

The 2025 Sealey Challenge Books (left to right):

1. One Big Self: an investigation (C.D. Wright)

2. spoke the dark matter (michelle whittaker)

3. Grief Slut (Evelyn Berry)

4. Lost, Hurt, or in Transit Beautiful (Rohan Chhetri)

5. Duende (Tracy K. Smith)

6. Dressing the Bear (Susan L. Leary)

7. When My Brother Was an Aztec (Natalie Diaz)

8. Nightingale (Paisley Rekdal)

9. DEED (torrin a. greathouse)

10. Pilgrim Bell (Kaveh Akbar)

11. Verb Animate (Heid E. Erdrich)

12. (Re)constructions (Bradley Trumpfheller)

13. Resurrected Body (Elizabeth C. Garcia)

14. American Inmate (Justin Rovillos Monson)

15. You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World (ed. Ada Limón)

16. Erasures of My Coming Out (Letter) (Mary Warren Foulk)

17. I’d Rather Be Destroyed (Zach Goldberg)

18. The Rent Eats First (Eric Sirota)

19. Smut Psalm (Josh Tvrdy)

20. Our Numbered Days (Neil Hilborn)

21. Nothing Is Okay (Rachel Wiley)

22. on a date with disappointment (Najya Williams)

23. Where I Dry the Flowers (Ollie Schminkey)

24. Toy Gun (Matt Coonan)

25. The Wellspring (Sharon Olds)

26. Then, Suddenly— (Lynn Emanuel)

27. The Irrationalist (Suzanne Buffam)

28. Crush (20th Anniversary Edition) (Richard Siken)

29. Some Animal (Ely Shipley)

30. XV (Zach Goldberg)

31. Nets (Jen Bervin)

You can read all of my Sealey Challenge posts:

You can also browse the entire list on Bookshop (except the five books not available there):

2025 Sealey Challenge (Davi Gray)

And that’s it! That’s the wrap. I’d love to hear any of your thoughts, comments, opinions, on any part of this and/or your own Sealey Challenge experience.