poetry

April is National Poetry Month

As I’ve said before, my plan is to read a poem a day the last third of the year.  But since April is National Poetry Month, I signed up with poets.org for a poem a day delivered via e-mail.  I’m going to stash them for later this year, but I’ll be peeking too.

To be honest, my desire to like poetry generally exceeds my actual enjoyment of it.  I always felt I was missing something.  Two events helped, first I read to my children Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky poems.  We all loved and understood the poems.  Second, I attended a writing conference in Idyllwild the same time Ted Kooser was leading a poetry conference.  I spent every night under the stars listening to poets.   Even if I didn’t understand the poem, I was bathed in the beauty of the rhythm and language.

Poetry Matters, my favorite guide to writing poetry for kids and the adults, like me, who want simple poetry instruction

I picked up a copy of Poetry Matters by Ralph Fletcher at Once Upon a Story last month.  It’s a book written to explain writing poetry to children.  Mr. Fletcher specifically states that it isn’t designed to help people understand poetry.  Well, I’m not a child and I’m not going to write poetry, so why did I buy it and read it?  First, I picked a kids book because it was written at my level of poetry knowledge and because my daughter writes poetry (one of her poems published this spring), so we’ll get double reading from one purchase.

Most importantly, I found I understood music better after learning the piano and art better once I learned a few drawing techniques.  People have explained to me a triple axle, triple flip and all kinds of ice skating jumps, but since I’ve never tried them (and never will), they really all look the same.  After reading Poetry Matters I have a better feel of what a poet is trying to achieve. 

I learned about the three pillars of poetry.  Emotion, poems speaking the unspeakable concisely.  Image, describing a scene, hopefully with a twist or surprise.  Music, infusing a poem with rhythm, beat and playing with language.  Mr. Fletcher has several chapters on crafting the poem:  the use of white space, when to break a line, the shape of the poem.  He gives brief explanations (even better, clear explanations) of various poetry terms, but his emphasis is on encouraging people to write poetry.  He encourages free verse so the poet doesn’t become frustrated over rhyming the words, although he also gives insights to different types of rhyming. 

My daughter will particularly enjoy the last chapter describing ways to make poems public.  My favorite is throwing a BYOP Party.  Every guest brings a poem to read, either one written or found.  Hmmm, that may be my next birthday party. 

Jump into poetry month, sign up for a poem a day and maybe even try writing one yourself.