It may be the cruellest month in Chaucer's world, but in North America April is National Poetry Month... so once again we're bringing out our special gathering of poems, poetry articles and resources from all over the About.com network. We're also starting a special NatPoMo newsletter this year. The newsletter you're reading right now, our regular weekly Museletter, will continue to arrive every Thursday morning, and every other day of the week for the rest of April, you will receive a "special delivery poem" from our libraries. Enjoy! Bob Holman and Margery Snyder
At Poetry Daily
Special April poems! As always during our Annual Poetry Month fund drive, we've asked 22 poets (including Mary Jo Bang, A. Van Jordan, Albert Goldbarth, and Susan Hahn, pictured here) to select poems to be delivered to you by email Monday through Friday of each week in April — their favorites from among The Greats — and to add their comments on the poems.
At Poetry Foundation - Watch a Video for National Poetry Month (for example, "I started early" ... By Emily Dickinson. Animated poem read by Blair Brown). April 2008 Poetry News from around the world... and many tools / features / articles year round.
And the rest of the world....
April is National Poetry Month for both the US an Canada - but not International Poetry Month. The UK designates October 4th another month as their National Poetry Day but, judging from this month's pieces in both blogosphere and traditional press, now seems to be picking up on April. Such is the media spread effect in the internet age.
World Poetry Day (UNESCO) was March 21
National Poetry Month on Podcast Alley
WordPress Blogs about: Poetry Month
Chicago poet Bernstein is against National Poetry Month and writes
As an alternative to National Poetry Month, I propose that we have an International Anti-Poetry month. As part of the activities, all verse in public places will be covered over—from the Statue of Liberty to the friezes on many of our government buildings. Poetry will be removed from radio and TV (just as it is during the other eleven months of the year). Parents will be asked not to read Mother Goose and other rimes to their children but only ... fiction. Religious institutions will have to forego reading verse passages from the liturgy and only prose translations of the Bible will recited, with hymns strictly banned. Ministers in the Black churches will be kindly requested to stop preaching. Cats will be closed for the month by order of the Anti-Poetry Commission. Poetry readings will be replaced by self-help lectures. Love letters will have to be written only in expository paragraphs. Baseball will have to start its spring training in May. No vocal music will be played on the radio or sung in the concert halls. Children will have to stop playing all slapping and counting and singing games and stick to board games and football.
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