National Poetry Month 2015

Established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month begins on April 1st and runs through April 30th every year. This month-long celebration of poetry is designed “to widen the attention of individuals and the media to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern.” During April, poets, poetry lovers, publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, and schools throughout the United States celebrate poetry.

One of the challenges of NPM is to read and/or write a poem every day. So ... in the spirit of the observance, for the fifth year I offer you what I hope will be inspiration for each of April’s thirty days.

This year, I’ve done some research into the most popular poems of all time and have listed my favorites among them below (in no particular order). As a change from previous years, this year, I ask you to click on the links below the poem titles and poets and to read the poems—one each day of the month. After reading the poem for any given day, spend some time with it; think about the content and anything in the poem that “strikes a chord” for you. Working from that “chord,” try to write a poem of your own that may or may not involve similar content. Let the famous poems inspire you and, then, follow your muse!

April 1—“Daffodils” (“I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”) by William Wordsworth

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3228991.ece

April 2—“Remember” by Christina Rossetti

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3228929.ece

April 3—“If” by Rudyard Kipling

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3228917.ece

April 4—“Invictus” by W. E. Henley

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3228971.ece

April 5—“Hope Is the thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3228946.ece

April 6—“Answer to a Child’s Question” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3228882.ece

April 7—“Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll (with audio)

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3228981.ece

April 8—“Love and Friendship” by Emily Brontë

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/poetrycompetition/article3229022.ece

April 9—“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

http://100.best-poems.net/road-not-taken.html

April 10—“I Carry Your heart With Me” by E. E. Cummings

http://100.best-poems.net/i-carry-your-heart-me.html

April 11—“I Loved You” by Alexander Pushkin

http://100.best-poems.net/i-loved-you.html

April 12—“Life Is Fine” by Langston Hughes

http://100.best-poems.net/life-fine1.html

April 13—“Seven Ages of Man” by William Shakespeare

http://100.best-poems.net/seven-ages-man.html

April 14—“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

http://100.best-poems.net/raven.html

April 15—“I Taught Myself to Live Simply” by Anna Akhmatova

http://100.best-poems.net/i-taught-myself-live-simply.html

April 16—“Brown Penny” by William Butler Yeats

http://100.best-poems.net/brown-penny.html

April 17—“If You Forget Me” by Pablo Neruda

http://100.best-poems.net/if-you-forget-me.html

April 18—“Digging” by Seamus Heaney

http://100.best-poems.net/digging.html

April 19—“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou

http://100.best-poems.net/i-know-why-caged-bird-sings.html

April 20—“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas

http://100.best-poems.net/do-not-go-gentle-good-night.html

April 21—“Cinderella” by Sylvia Plath

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8498493-Cinderella-by-Sylvia-Plath

April 22—“Laughing Song” by William Blake

http://allpoetry.com/Laughing-Song

April 23—“The Starry Night” by Anne Sexton

http://allpoetry.com/The-Starry-Night

April 24—“Dreams” by Langston Hughes

http://allpoetry.com/poem/8495507-Dreams-by-Langston-Hughes

April 25—“Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

http://allpoetry.com/Song-of-Myself

April 26—“No Man Is an Island” by John Donne

https://web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html

April 27—“Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/forgetfulness/

April 28—“Blackberry-Picking” by Seamus Heaney

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/181384

April 29—“The Bear” by Galway Kinnell

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171391

April 30—“Alone” by Philip Levine

http://poetryandimages.tumblr.com/post/41901941751/alone-philip-levine

 

Tips:

1. Don’t feel compelled to match your content to the examples’—in fact, do just the opposite and make your poems as different as you possibly can. The example poems are only intended to trigger some poetry-spark that’s unique to you and to guide your thinking a little—don’t let them enter too deeply into your poems, don’t let their content become your content.

2. Let your reactions to the poems surprise you. Begin with no expectations, and let your poems take you where they want to go.

3. Give the topics your own spin, twist and turn them, let the phrases trigger personal responses: pin down your ghosts, identify your frailties, build bridges and cross rivers, take chances!

4. Keep in mind that writing a poem a day doesn’t mean you have to “finish” each poem immediately. You can write a draft each day and set your drafts aside to work on later.

5. Whatever you do this month, find some time (a little or a lot) to enjoy some poetry!

As always, your sharing is welcome,

so please feel welcome to post your thoughts and poems as comments!

Regular weekly prompts will resume on Saturday, May 2nd.

In the meantime, I wish you a wonderful and poetry-filled April!

Happy National Poetry Month!

Let the poem-ing begin!

Wonderful News!

When I started this blog, I promised myself that it wouldn't be an "about-me" blog, and I've tried to keep that promise. This week, however, I'm excited to share some really special news with you in lieu of a prompt or guest blogger post.

My new book, A Lightness, A Thirst, Or Nothing At All, is now ready for immediate shipment (at a generous discount) via Amazon.com.

 

Trailer

If you haven't already ordered a copy,
I very much hope you will (and thank you in advance for your support)!

  

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

(You may also place an order through your favorite bookseller.)

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From the Publisher's Press Release

"Welcome Rain Publishers (www.welcomerain.com) is pleased to announce publication of A Lightness, A Thirst, Or Nothing At All by Adele Kenny, a collection of 53 prose poems. Prose poems, which are arranged in short paragraphs rather than in lines, include deliberate fragments, the language of dreams, and an occasional nod to the surreal. Kenny combines these techniques with her signature elements of striking imagery and compelling immediacy to inform an enhanced view of the ways in which the interior life intersects with the outside world. These poems startle, surprise, and tell us things about ourselves that we didn't know."

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About the Book

"A gorgeous, deeply pondered work of art. I love it."

             
          —Renée Ashley, Poetry Editor of The Literary Review

"In language so subtly pitched, paced and modulated it captures our attention without drawing attention to itself, Kenny draws us into discovering that what never changes is all around us in the ever-changing world, that one is only approachable, knowable, bearable through the other.  We trust her to be our guide because her vision is so unwavering."

          —Martin J. Farawell, Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival Director

"Talk about channeling! Here reborn is Emily Dickinson, replete with the mystery, the haunting spirituality, and the metaphysical imagery. Adele, more than any other contemporary poet, balances all these elements so well, though with a touch far more personal than Dickinson’s." 

                             
          —Charles DeFanti, Author of The Wages of Expectation

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Sample Poems

Click Here for Video Remix of "Twilight and What There Is" (Video and Reading by Nic Sebastian)

WHAT YOU KNOW

A stray dog laps the moon from a broken flowerpot. Silk hydrangeas bloom against the fence. A heron stands on the clothesline—bluer than blue—perched where (sky, earth) edges converge.

On the wall, the painting of a clock ticks, hands painted in at three forty-seven. She takes a wax apple from the bowl and peels it with a silver fruit knife. Sugared bread dries on the table. Across the room, a dimensional window masquerades as persuasion. If you believe it, it is.

WHAT CALLS YOU

Back then, I wasn’t sure what calling meant. I thought something mystical—God’s hand on my arm, a divine voice speaking my name. Instead, I discovered the colors of cyclamen, how even the meanest weeds burst into bloom.

It works like this—among the books and fires—grace comes disguised as the winter finch, its beak in the seed; the twilight opossum that feeds on scraps—her babies born beneath my neighbor’s shed. Every day, I learn what love is: the finches, the opossum, the child with Down Syndrome who asked, Can I hug you a hundred times?

Whatever idea I had of myself turns on this: what lives on breath is spirit. I discover the power of simple places—silence—the desire to become nothing.

  

Prompt #220 – Limericks

With St. Patrick's Day coming up this Tuesday, I thought it might be fun to work with a form of poetry that's associated with the Irish.

The limerick is a quintessentially Irish form of poetry. Humorous, and sometimes naughty (even downright bawdy), limericks contain three long and two short lines that rhyme in a pattern of a,a,b,b,a. The oldest limerick (format) on record (thirteenth century) is one in Latin written by Thomas Aquinas in the form of a prayer:

             Sit vitiorum meorum evacuatio

            Concupiscentae et libidinis exterminatio,

            Caritatis et patientiae,

            Humilitatis et obedientiae,

            Omniumque virtutum augmentatio

During the eighteenth century limericks appeared in Mother Goose’s Melodies, but was most widely popularized by Edward Lear in his 1846 Book of Nonsense; however, Lear didn’t use the term Limerick. Here’s an example from Lear’s book:

          There was an Old Man with a beard,

          Who said, “It is just as I feared!

          Two Owls and a Hen,

          Four Larks and a Wren,

          Have all built their nests in my beard!”

Other poets who wrote limericks include Lord Alfred Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, and Robert Louis Stevenson.

Guidelines & Tips:

Remember that limericks are typically humorous—have fun writing one or more this week.

Pick a topic and write your limerick using the typical pattern:

The first, second and fifth lines rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables (typically 8).

The third and fourth lines rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables (typically 5)

The fifth line either repeats the first line or rhymes with it.

Limericks have an anapestic rhythm that’s created through accented and unaccented syllables. The pattern is illustrated below with dashes for weak syllables, and back-slashes for stressed syllables:

 - / - - / - - /

 - / - - / - - /

 - / - - /
 - / - - /
 - / - - / - - /

Examples: 

Click Here for Limerick Examples

Prompt #219 – A Piece of Your Mind

When most people think about poetry, they think in terms of beautiful expressions. For the uninitiated,  that usually means the stuff of spring days and flowers, love and loveliness. However, some of the most compelling poetry goes in an entirely different direction. Enter the “rant poem.” Rant poems offer poets opportunities to metaphorically stamp their feet, throw things out the window, and tell people off. Rant poems enable their writers to “let off steam” and walk away feeling good. In a rant poem, you can:

• Complain
• Criticize
• Argue
• Denounce
• Engage in a Verbal Tirade
• Spit Nails
• Tell Someone What You Really Think of Him or Her
• Tell Yourself Off for Something You’ve Done and Regret

Guidelines:

1. Pick a subject that really annoys, angers, provokes, or upsets you (something personal, something in the news, something about other people’s behaviors, etc).

2. Free write about that subject for several minutes. In this part of the process, don’t “pull your punches.”

3. Take a look at what you’ve written, and decide on the tone or “feeling” you want to highlight in your poem.

4. Think about what you want your readers to understand in your poem. In other words, what's the point of your rant?

5. Think about how you want to rant (using humor, vehemently, using sarcasm).

6. Go back to your free write and pick the details that will be a good fit for the tone or mood you want to create. Use language with “muscle.”

7. Begin writing using the details you selected from your free write, but don't be afraid to move in other directions as well.

8. Conclude with a real punch (a statement that beings your rant to closure in a unique and powerful way).

Tips:

1. Imagine yourself reading your poem aloud to an audience, then look at your poem and determine whether or not the emotion you want to convey comes through written language as well as it would if you were to read the poem aloud. Revise accordingly.

2. Punctuate purposefully. Use commas, dashes, and other punctuation marks to emphasize important parts of your rant.

3. Use adjectives sparingly. Remember that too many adjectives can be your worst enemy: most often the concept is already made clear in the noun.

The Wonder of Workshops by Guest Blogger Basil Rouskas

Have you ever attended a poetry workshop? Many poets, novice and experienced alike, find that attending workshops can be rewarding. 

Not all poetry workshops are created equally, and it’s always a good idea to do some research before enrolling and paying fees. A good poetry workshop, one worth your investment of time and money should:

1. Help you discover your writing strengths and weaknesses.

2. Provide you with practical suggestions (and, if applicable, non-judgmental critiques) for improving your writing, along with prompts and other motivational and generative resources.

3. Present opportunities for sharing your passion for poetry with other poets.

For this week’s guest blog, I invited Basil Rouskas, a long-time member of the poetry group I conduct to share some of his impressions of workshops and how they’ve been helpful to him. Some of you may be familiar with Basil’s work: for the past few years, he has written a poem a day throughout April (National Poetry Month here in the US) and has posted his poems as comments. (Our workshop, by the way, is in its tenth year, and I’m so proud of our members, all of whom have published numerous poems in journals and anthologies, have won awards, and have had books published.)

Basil Rouskas has been writing poetry for over 30 years. His first poems were written in his native Greek and were protests against the military junta that took over Greece and ruled it until the mid 1970’s. He translated literature and theater during his first years in the US, and gradually his poetry became bilingual. He currently writes mainly in English. He is the author of two books, Redrawing Borders and Blue Heron on Black River. A third book, The Window That Faces South, was quarter finalist in the third (2014) Mary Ballard poetry Chapbook Prize by Casey Shay Press. Basil’s poetry has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, Princeton Public Library Podcast, Helix Magazine, Shot Glass Journal, and Tiferet. In addition to being a poet, Basil is a management consultant, coach, mentor, advisor and expert in executive development. He is the co-founder of NovAspire and has taught at several institutions of higher learning. He has been a lecturer, consultant and leadership development instructor since 1993 at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management (MBA) at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

From Basil Rouskas

What I have found through ten years of sharing with the Westfield Poetry Group is easy to articulate: special people—both colleagues and coach. What that means is encouragement, inspiration, honest feedback, resources, books, and tips. (Oh, along the way we dissect poems and suggest things to each other. All of a sudden (over a period of years) we realize that along the way we become better at the writing “craft” as well.)

Specific Things that Evolve through Workshop Experiences:

•       You discover your natural preferences for the poetry writing process. I prefer to first write out long hand in a notebook that I reserve for poetry only. Then I enter the draft into my computer’s word processing program

•       You develop strategies for “hearing” your own work. I read all lines aloud when I write them

•       You learn to evaluate sound in your own poems. When my ear is not happy with the sound of a word, I refer to an online thesaurus and substitute the word with many candidates. I then reread the draft again using each option until I find the one that works best.

•       You develop systems for organizing your work. I file my poems so I can sort them out by date of creation or alphabetize by title

Note: I have a drop box account and save my poetry chronologically (for details, visit www.dropbox.com and establish an account. It is free.) One of the benefits of Dropbox.com,  is that when I revise a poem, I automatically see it updated on my iPhone, where I also have Dropbox installed. This way I have my poetry always portable and I have an instant copy of  it on my regular desktop computer at home, without any extra effort.

Some Things I’ve Learned:

1. When I want to bring up the “energy” of a poem, I switch it into the present tense and read it aloud. If I like it, I commit to the new tense.

2. I don’t read poems at workshops or public readings that I have not revisited at least three times.

3. I avoid predictability like the plague. If a poem takes me down that path, I abandon it.

4. I read and mark (or copy) intriguing or touching stories from digital newspapers to use for inspiration.

5. I always read my “works in progress” and ask myself how I might make improvements. (For example, how necessary are all my adverbs, adjectives, and articles?)

6. I mark websites or URLs that contain rich language; I find they are great for kick starting a poem.

7. I visit and mark good Blogsites that offer prompts and craft tips. My favorite of these is right here (The Music In It).

8. At times I read foreign language websites, and I get inspiration from the sounds of foreign words I don’t understand. In doing so, if something intrigues me, I use Google translator to see if the meaning of the poem/song still interests me. I then put something on paper and revisit it within a couple of weeks.

9. I’ve learned to edit, edit and re-edit. And when I am editing, editing and re-editing, I cut, cut and re-cut. I’ve learned not to fear that I might “toss out and lose inspiration for ever.”

10. I’ve also learned not to push myself when the muse wants some time off on her own. We sometimes take a sabbatical from each other. We travel separately. When we see each other again, good things happen.

11. I read poets who are on the same wavelength and find that their work does miracles for my own new material. Some of my same wavelength poets are: George Seferis, Odysseus Elytis, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Yehuda Amichai, Czeslaw Milosz, and Wislawa Szymborska.

12. As an editing exercise, I translate into English poems from (my native) Greek, when I don’t have direct inspiration in English.

I realize I have been sharing a lengthy list here. If you ask me to condense it down to only three,  that have helped me the most, I would include:

A)  Form a community of honest competent poets and learn from them. Like other arts, your poetry stands on the shoulders of others’ work, book recommendations and balanced feedback.

B)  It is human to want to be published and share our work with the world, but I try to not lose  my “voice” just to make it more publishable.

C)  Cut, cut and re-cut (counts for only one word !)

PS. Here is an exercise you may try: Start with a poem that you have been struggling to complete. Decide arbitrarily a percentage  —  perhaps 30% — of words that you want to eliminate. Cut enough words to reach your goal. Every word processor has a “word count” feature. Once you’ve reached your goal, is the poem closer to where you want it to be? If yes, great. If no, cut more or consider “tossing” the current version. (Sometimes I find tossing a big relief from a thankless struggle. BUT … be sure to save and “re-use” lines and images for future poems.)

Thank you, Basil! 

Click Here to Order Basil's Books

Prompt #218 – Selfies

You’ve all probably heard of “selfies,” pictures we take of ourselves and then post on smartphones or social media such as Facebook. Some of these are funny. I even posted a close-up of my dog’s face on Facebook and noted that it was his own selfie. In a more literary/poetic mode, I recently re-read part of Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and got to thinking about “selfie poems” (poems that poets have written to be specifically “definitions” of themselves). There certainly are a lot of them, but I thought that, perhaps, a “selfie poem” with a slight twist might be interesting to try. So … this week, the challenge is to write a poem in which your past self talks to your present self.

Think in terms of who you were and who you are right now.

Guidelines:

Begin by jotting down some character traits and experiences from your past (list, scribble).

Then, do the same thing and jot down some current character traits and experiences.

Think about what made you who you were and what makes you who you are.

Think about how you define yourself. What things define you?

After you’ve gotten some ideas, you might try writing in a dialogue format, going back and forth between “past” and “present.” (Of course, any form with which you’re comfortable is fine.)

Tips:

Try using a few questions as a technique for expressing content and holding reader interest.

Experiment with sound—try to create a sense of music in your poem through alliteration, assonance, consonance, internal rhymes, off rhyme (also called slant rhyme and near rhyme), and anaphora. Use auditory imagery: give an impression of how something sounds though images.

Be sure to use concrete rather than abstract images. Change abstract words into concrete words when you revise.

Subvert the ordinary: see and show things in a new, exciting way. Take something ordinary and turn it upside down (subvert it).

Don’t overwrite—remember that less can be more.

Examples: 

"Song of Myself" By Walt Whitman
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174745

"Self Portrait" By Robert Creeley
http://www.poetryinvoice.com/poems/self-portrait

"A Dialogue of Self and Soul"
http://allpoetry.com/A-Dialogue-Of-Self-And-Soul
 

Prompt #217 – Favorite Words

When I woke yesterday morning, the thermometer on my deck read 2º F. (– 17) C.) Brrrr! As much as I love winter, that's cold! Apropos of nothing in particular, after checking the outdoor temperature and putting out some bread and peanut butter for the squirrels, I sat down with a cup of Earl Grey and thought  about my favorite word. I know—what made me think of that? Do you have a favorite word? Mine is rill. I’ve always thought that if I were to use a pseudonym, the first name would be “Rill.” Interestingly, I’ve never used that word in anything I’ve written.

This week, I’d like you to think about your favorite words and then choose one to be the inspiration word for a poem.

Guidelines:

1. Begin by making a list of words that you like (any part of speech—noun, verb, adjective—is fine).

2. After you’ve made your list, take a look at it and choose one of the words to work with.

3. Make another list of ideas, images, and emotions that your chosen word brings to mind.

3. Does your word make you think of a particular experience?

4. Begin writing, and let your “favorite word” guide the direction of your poem.

5. Be sure to use the word as, or in, your title.

6. An alternative is to choose a word you dislike.

7. And another alternative is to choose the weirdest word you've ever heard.

Tips:

1. Be sure to include fresh language, concreteness, and a strong emotional center. Find the “power” in your word and give that power its head.

2.  Show, don’t tell.

3. Avoid “ing” endings and prepositional phrases.

4. Connect, reveal, and surprise (yourself and your readers). Remember that a good poem should astonish its readers in some way.

5. Perhaps pose a question that’s impossible to answer.

6. During the editing and revising part of your process, look for the “lifeless” parts of your poem and either give them life or get rid of them.

Example:   

There is a Word

By Emily Dickinson

There is a word

Which bears a sword

Can pierce an armed man—

It hurls its barbed syllables

And is mute again—

But where it fell

The saved will tell

On patriotic day,

some epauletted Brother

Gave his breath away.

Wherever runds the breathless sun—

Wherever roams the day—

There is its noiseless onset—

There is its victory!

Behold the keenest marksman!

The most accomplished shot!

Time’s sublimest target

Is a soul “Forgot.”