Sherry Chandler

National Poetry Month

So, National Poetry Month begins today. The confluence of April Fool’s Day, Palm Sunday, and the beginning of National Poetry Month seems to have a significance beyond that which my poor intellect can comprehend. Something about the wise and holy fool, perhaps. Anyway, I have tried to make my posts appropriate to the day.

In the past, I have “celebrated” this occasion by bringing you a poet a day. But that’s a lot of work, very constricting, and I’m not sure it serves poets all that well. Anyway, I’m in a bah-humbug mood, so I’m not going to commit myself to it this year. Not every day anyway.

To quote Rachel Dacus: most of us find the festivities and publicity [of National Poetry Month] to be on a par with National Beetroot Day.

If you’d like to have a poem a day, I can offer you several resources. You can sign up for:

• The Academy of American Poets‘ — they started it — poem-a-day.
• The Writer’s Almanac newsletter, or, if you’re more digitally inclined, the podcast.
• Knopf will send you a poem a day from its poetry series, complete with audio clips and printable broadsides in PDF format. To subscribe send a blank email to sub_knopfpoetry@info.randomhouse.com.
• Poetry Daily has a nice feature. They’ll send you their “Poets’ Picks” e-mail : we’ve asked 20 past Poetry Daily poets to contribute to our celebration by selecting poems to be delivered to you by e-mail each weekday in April - their favorites from among The Greats – along with their commentary.
• Visit Windows Toward the World for Helen Losse’s poem-a day selection.
• Or, you can keep an eye on my “This Day in History” feature in the sidebar and click through to poets I’ve featured in 2005 and 2006.

If you want a more hands-on approach, you can participate in NaPoWriMo. I can’t really find a central organizing location for this one, unless it is Poetry Free-for-All. I don’t plan to be doing this one, either.

For a look at the down side of National Poetry Month, try Charles Bernstein’s Against National Poetry Month:

As part of the spring ritual of National Poetry Month, poets are symbolically dragged into the public square in order to be humiliated with the claim that their product has not achieved sufficient market penetration and must be revived by the Artificial Resuscitation Foundation (ARF) lest the art form collapse from its own incompetence, irrelevance, and as a result of the general disinterest among the broad masses of the American People.

The motto of ARF’s National Poetry Month is: “Poetry’s not so bad, really.”

Addendum: In celebration of National Poetry Month (sort of), Billy the Blogging Poet is taking nominations for Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere. Past choices have been Jill Dybka and Ron Silliman.

Possibly related posts:

National Poetry Month events

Begin National Poetry Month with a Safe Digression

September Memorize Poetry Month

National Book Awards

Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize

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