National Poetry Month April 2011

Saffron · Sun Mar 06, 2011 12:25 pm

National Poetry Month 2011

As we approach the end of the countdown of poems from Top 500 and National Poetry Month (for those of us in the USA it is April), I’d like to invite anyone with an interest to start a thread exploring a particular poet or poems around a theme. If you need guidance or help get the thread going just PM me.

As we get closer to April look for news on "Poem in Your Pocket Day" information and links. Also ahead, look for photos of my guerilla poetry exploits.

Saffron · Wed Mar 09, 2011 7:00 am

Here are two websites to use as resources in searching for poems on a theme or of a particular poet.

Poets.org
http://www.poets.org/index.php

The Poetry Foundation
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

I hope someone will take up my challenge.

Poem in Your Pocket Day is April 14th

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

Saffron · Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:50 pm

30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month!

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/94? ... rm=30_ways

1. Celebrate Poem in your pocket day, April 14, 2011
2. Read a book of poetry
3. Memorize a poem
4. Put a poem in an unusual place
5. Revisit a poem

If you want to see more go to the website!

Saffron · Thu Apr 14, 2011 6:46 pm

Today was "Poem in Your Pocket Day." I spent my day in a training, so, no poem in my pocket. I had two picked out though. Here is my number two.

Grasshopper
by Ron Padgett

It's funny when the mind thinks about the psyche,
as if a grasshopper could ponder a helicopter.

It's a bad idea to fall asleep
while flying a helicopter:

when you wake up, the helicopter is gone
and you are too, left behind in a dream,

and there is no way to catch up,
for catching up doesn't figure

in the scheme of things. You are
who you are, right now,

and the mind is so scared it closes its eyes
and then forgets it has eyes

and the grasshopper, the one that thinks
you're a helicopter, leaps onto your back!

He is a brave little grasshopper
and he never sleeps

for the poem he writes is the act
of always being awake, better than anything

you could ever write or do.
Then he springs away.

Saffron · Mon Apr 18, 2011 9:08 pm

Only 2 more weeks of National Poetry Month. Do you know where your poem is?

Eating Poetry
By Mark Strand b. 1934 Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

realiz · Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:57 am

A poem for spring and gardening:

In Perpetual Spring
BY AMY GERSTLER B. 1956 Amy Gerstler

Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies
and trip over the roots
of a sweet gum tree,
in search of medieval
plants whose leaves,
when they drop off
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they
plop into water.

Suddenly the archetypal
human desire for peace
with every other species
wells up in you. The lion
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,
queen of the weeds, revives
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt
there is a leaf to cure it.

Saffron · Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:15 am

We are about to wrap up National Poetry Month. We've had so much rain here in Virginia that I have not been out with chaulking poems, my usual way to celebrate the month. I have had to settle for less splashy ways to participate. Each year I get a poem a day emailed by Poets.org. This is the poem that came today -- it is a good example of how just one line of a poem can keep you engaged in the poem long enough to like or appreciate a poem you might over wise have passed over.

Red Bank
by Lesle Lewis

I wanted a horse.

I jumped from a plane.

I was not comfortable with your illness.

I was a detective at the wedding.

I recognized the new way it would be with you in rehabilitation.

I saw how the sunset colors on the Navesink River got sad with the lone rower.

I lived on a lone planet with my befuddlement.

I'd lost a person.

I didn't know how to hold my lips.

I was like the goose bathing in parking lot puddles.

Definitely, I am on a train.

realiz · Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:46 am

Red Bank reminds me of a list given out in a writing class, pick one and start writing. Each of these lines does make you want to know what comes next, and you have to pause and back up and ponder.

Here is something to contrast that...simple, no pondering, but might put a smile on your face.

Spring
BY KARLA KUSKIN 1932–2009 Karla Kuskin

I’m shouting
I’m singing
I’m swinging through trees
I’m winging skyhigh
With the buzzing black bees.
I’m the sun
I’m the moon
I’m the dew on the rose.
I’m a rabbit
Whose habit
Is twitching his nose.
I’m lively
I’m lovely
I’m kicking my heels.
I’m crying “Come Dance”
To the fresh water eels.
I’m racing through meadows
Without any coat
I’m a gamboling lamb
I’m a light leaping goat
I’m a bud
I’m a bloom
I’m a dove on the wing.
I’m running on rooftops
And welcoming spring!

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