National Poetry Month

Welcome April and welcome to National Poetry Month. I love celebrating poetry and this year it’s the 25th year of National Poetry Month. Isn’t that cool?

One of my reading challenges this year is the Poetry Reaching challenge hosted by Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit. I’m happy to report that I have read one book out of the three I plan to read. And, it also happened to be a new poet to me, Mexican poet Jaime Sabines.

His poetry collection, Poesia Amorosa, is very accessible and playful with the words and imagery. I think if you are hesitant to try poetry and feel like it’s hard to understand, it’s always helpful to start with a poet who writes about ordinary things.

The other thing I would recommend for anyone who doesn’t feel like they get poetry is to hear it out loud. I used to go to poetry slams and loved the enthusiasm and performance aspects of the readings.

As always, I recommend signing up for Poem-A-Day. And, if you prefer to listen to poetry, why not check out a podcast like Poetry Off the Shelf by Poetry Foundation?

You’re probably wondering which poetry collection I’ll be reading. I haven’t decided. I could pick up something by Mary Oliver or Billy Collins but I am really try to go out of my comfort zone. Or is it that I’m just trying to justify buying some new books? Ha… Anyway, let me know if you’re planning on celebrating National Poetry Month.