Abundance in Springtime — and National Poetry Month. April is a delicious combination, offering bounties of beauty, nature, lyricism, and fun. Find a walking trail near you and dream a poem to celebrate!
Poetry Month
The Academy of American Poets launched this annual celebration of the art in 1996. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and—of course—poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives. Are you participating in the Poem-A-Day challenge for this month? You don’t have to write a poem to enjoy this literary celebration. The Academy of American Poets has 30 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month, for readers, teachers, and writers.
HEART STRUNG IS NOW IN KINDLE UNLIMITED!
For subscribers to KU is a monthly subscription service for readers to borrow Kindle books. It’s like a library card that limits you to borrowing 10 titles at a time. You can now borrow the Kindle version of Heart Strung!
You Can Help – Leave an Amazon Review
If you’ve read or started to read my new book, you can help me promote it on Amazon. It’s really simple. Go to the page or the book on your Kindle, scroll to the end of the page (or end of book on Kindle), and click on the lefthand button “Review this product”. You don’t have to write anything — you can just add stars for how you feel about the book. Of course, writing a line or two is terrifically helpful. People browsing for books will check the number of stars and the written reviews to find out if they want to read. Thanks For Leaving a Review!
April 18 – #PoemInYourPocketDay
My April Poem-a-Day Challenge
Yes, I’m going to take the challenge this April, and write (or noodle around on) a poem every day. That includes haikus, a single couplet, and rehabbing ancient drafts that weren’t working.
I’m working on a new poetry collection tentatively titled Feathered Messages highlighting – you guess it – the importance of birds in our midst and the way they affect us. Did you know, for example, that hearing birdsong regulates your pulse and breathing to calm you?
Here’s a new feathered poem which will be part of that collection (with thanks to editors of The Same, where the poem first appeared):
Bright Fish of the Air
Face pillow-wrinkled,
dragging bags of dream,
I pull back the curtain
and on the other side a hummingbird
bobs, watching me.
A whirling top,
he never runs down.
He is a whale’s dream
of flying, a star
come for tea.
How do I know he’s a he?
The way he rotates
in sudden green and red,
surveying me sharply
as if I were a cone
of honeysuckle.
I hold in my breath.
He clicks and then
the bright fish of air
wiggles and zips
into the trees leaving me
vibrating like the tail-end
of a High C.
American Writers Museum has some fun ideas for creating poems. Their 5 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month includes a suggestion I’m going to work on: write an ode to your pet. I’ve written poems and even collaborated on a song about dogs.
Here’s one of my dog poems – feel free to reply with a poem for or about your pets!
Dog Running (from Earth Lessons)
The dog runs nose to ground
as we run with our eyes wide open.
The dog uses tongue for hands
and prefers his nose to his eyes.
No human runs with closed lids
and a tongue hanging out
unless it’s raining lemonade.
How does the world seem
smelled and tasted like a stew
instead of seen and codified?
The dog runs on pliant earth
with open paws,
catching the coin of soil,
spending as he goes.
As I want to run through life.
Happy spring and happy Poetry Month!