It's National Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month (the 25th year) in the U.S. and Canada, and there are poetry events scheduled throughout both countries. Just yesterday, I participated in the open mic event of the New Orleans Poetry Festival, which features readings, panels and other activities for the entire month. Because everything is on Zoom right now, anyone can register to "attend" these events.

National Poetry Month is also celebrated at libraries and in schools.

Poets.org is a great resource for celebrating National Poetry Month. You can sign up to get a poem a day in your mailbox, or you can just go to the website and read a new poem each day. You can also subscribe to the Poem-a-Day podcast.

This year, Thursday, April 29 will be Poem in Your Pocket Day, one of my favorite National Poetry Month events. Since we are still not going out much, check the website page for other ways (that do not involve pockets) to share your selected poem.

I encourage everyone to do something, even a small thing, to celebrate National Poetry Month: read a poem or a collection of poems (there are literary journals all over the Internet--see the Things to Read section of this blog for some ideas). Re-visit poems you studied long ago in school. Buy a chapbook or a poetry book. 

And if you've always thought about writing poetry, now is a good time to start. I wrote creative non-fiction and short fiction for several years, and didn't think that I would ever be a poet. Then, when I ran out of story ideas but still wanted to write something, I took the plunge and began writing poetry, just to be able to keep writing creatively. To my surprise, I took to it so much that I haven't written anything else since (though I'd still like to return to those other genres). 

Writing poetry isn't easy. Free verse, as opposed to what many people think, is not just a bunch of words and lines slapped together--there are rules for writing good free verse. And formal poetry, which I especially enjoy writing, requires learning about meter, rhyme, enjambment, and the many variations of formal poetry. 

To learn more about how to write poetry, you can sign up for an online workshop (I did that, and it was very helpful), join a group like Eratosphere (especially if you want to write formal poetry), read books about writing poetry, and also--be sure to read a lot of poetry!

And if you want more ideas about observing National Poetry Month, here are 30 Ways to Celebrate the 25th Annual National Poetry Month at Home or Online.