- Share This Post
- Pin It
- 5
-
Sparkle (0)
I can still remember one of the very first poems I wrote. I think it was in first grade that I penned this beauty:
There was a howling wind
It never seemed to stop.
And then one summer day
It bumped into a tree -- kerplop!
As you can imagine, the editors of Poetry have been pestering me for submissions ever since.
Poetry as Filter
Seriously, though: Years of reading poems, writing and teaching poetry, and learning from poets have shaped the way I see the world. Poetry becomes a filter for the ways I understand nature, news, faces, and conversations. For example, I can't see a lemon tree without summoning up the first several lines from Eugenio Montale's excellent poem "The Lemon Trees" as translated by Irma Brandeis:
Listen; the poets laureate
walk only among plants
of unfamiliar name: boxwood, acanthus;
I, for my part, perfer the streets that fade
to grassy ditches where a boy
hunting the half-dried puddles
sometimes scoops up a meagre eel;
the little paths that window along the slopes,
plunge down among the cane-tufts,
and break into the orchards, among trunks of the lemon-trees.
Nor can I imagine the shores of northeastern North America--from Canada down through New England--without thinking of from Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The Moose," which describes that territory as "narrow provinces / of fish and bread and tea."
And when I read the newspapers or news online, I'm drawn to Margaret Atwood's poem "How to Tell One Country from Another." (Go on, click through to read it.)
Once you get to know enough poetry, once you know what a poem does and how it works, it changes you.
National Poetry Month
Although I don't find enough time to write poetry these days (too much blogging!), my appreciation for poetry has never waned. How crazy in love have I been for poetry? A decade ago I earned a Master's degree in writing poetry. (Again, as you can imagine, employers have been hounding me ever since.) And every spring, when April brings fine weather and National Poetry Month (see also Sassymonkey's post on the month), I get nostalgic for that free time (in college and grad school, before I had a toddler and a full-time job) I had to spend sitting outside under the new leaves of bright green trees, reading--what else?--poetry.
The Academy of American Poets is encouraging us to all renew--or start--the habit of reading poetry by putting a poem in our pockets on April 17:
The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends on April 17.
Poems from pockets will be unfolded throughout the day with events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces, and bookstores. Create your own Poem In Your Pocket Day event using ideas below or let us know how you will celebrate Poem In Your Pocket Day by emailing npm@poets.org.
In this age of mechanical and digital reproduction, it's easy to carry a poem, share a poem, or start your own PIYP day event. Here are some ideas of how you might get involved:
- Start a "poems for pockets" give-a-way in your school or workplace
- Urge local businesses to offer discounts for those carrying poems
- Post pocket-sized verses in public places
- Handwrite some lines on the back of your business cards
- Start a street team to pass out poems in your community
- Distribute bookmarks with your favorite immortal lines
- Add a poem to your email footer
- Post a poem on your blog or social networking page
- Project a poem on a wall, inside or out
- Text a poem to friends
Does the idea or the particular implementation of National Poetry Month make you uneasy? If so, you may find Charles Bernstein's essay "Against National Poetry Month as Such" to be interesting reading. An excerpt:
The most desirable aim of the Academy's National Poetry Month is to increase the sales of poetry books. But when I scan some of the principal corporate sponsors of the program of the past several years, I can't help noting (actually I can but I prefer not to) that some are among the major institutions that work actively against the wider distribution of poetry. The large chain bookstores are no friends to the small presses and independent bookstores that are the principal supporters of all types of American poetry: they have driven many independents out of business and made it more difficult for most small presses (the site of the vast majority of poetry publishing) to get their books
