Wednesday, April 20, 2011

April is National Poetry Month!


National Poetry Month!

As someone who has been forced to read poems in archaic English and the dreaded (to me) concrete poem, I understand that reading poetry can be difficult. However, a friend of mine recently described poetry as "word magic" and I happen to think he's got a point. In fact, in writing this post I spend a chunk of the afternoon reading poetry and have been absolutely swooning over life. Poetry can do it all! Fit any mood! Express any feeling! Take you to any location! Check this out.

Would you like a brief, fun distraction from a long day? Try out Ogden Nash’s “The Ant”
The ant has made himself illustrious Through constant industry industrious. So what? Would you be calm and placid If you were full or formic acid?

Interested in word and phrase origins? By reading Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rhime of the Ancient Mariner” you find the source of the phrase, “Water, water, every where,/ Nor any drop to drink”
Poetry! Ta-da!

Perhaps you want to read a “classic” without being put to sleep. Why not try Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”? It’s about slaying a monster!

Do these options seem too cheerful for you? Perhaps you’d prefer something a big morose? Sylvia Plath is there for you.
“Soon, soon the flesh / the grave cave ate will be / At home on me”


Here are some other favorites of mine, my fellow librarians, and other “word magic” enthusiasts. (In roughly chronological order from newest to oldest).
For even more great poetry options, check out the National Poetry Month display on the third floor of Faulk Central Library!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The April 4 issue of The New Yorker (included in the Library's databases) has a love poem by Tennessee Williams that begins with:

"Suppose that
everything that greens and grows
should blacken in one moment, flower and branch.
I think that I would find your blinded hand.
Suppose that your cry and mine were lost among numberless cries
in a city of fire when the earth is afire,
I must still believe that somehow I would find your blinded hand."