In the month of April, the Academy of American Poets urges us to celebrate National Poetry Month – a unique invention that they instituted in 1996. They even provide us with 30 potential ways to celebrate. These include anything from learning to write poetry, to reading poetry, to buying poetry books.
30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month
As for me, I’ve been an avid supporter of NaNoWriMo for many years. For those who still may not be familiar – that’s National Novel Writing Month. It originally began as an annual event in November which encouraged writers of all talents and experience to come together, commit to a project, and churn out at least 50,000 words by month’s end. To be fair, that is quite a feat for those of us with limited time on our hands and I’m a rare completionist, but a regular participant.
Over the years, NaNoWriMo has expanded its offerings to include 2 camps in the spring and summer months, as well as a youth program and a script writing program. These offer more flexibility than the rigid 50k commitment in November, which I can definitely appreciate. In recent years, I’ve also discovered a splinter group that calls themselves NaPoWriMo – if you haven’t guessed, that’s National Poetry Writing Month. They’ve claimed the month of April as a time to commit to writing one poem a day for the entire month. This seems like a beautiful way to celebrate National Poetry Month. Plus, it’s less daunting for someone like me. I can commit to one poem a day a lot easier than I can commit to 1,667 words a day.
So, here goes…I have a few days to make up, but I’ll be posting each of the 30 poems here throughout the month. Good, bad, or otherwise!
S.T. Marie 