April News & Announcements
You know what they say about April showers? Well, I’m sitting here writing this to the sound of spring showers pattering against the window panes. Looks like May will be full of blooming flowers!
Spring may be the most inspiring season of all; many poets throughout the centuries have captured the glory of spring with carefully crafted language:
“Early Spring” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Harshness vanished. A sudden softness
has replaced the meadows’ wintry grey.
Little rivulets of water changed
their singing accents. Tendernesses,hesitantly, reach toward the earth
from space, and country lanes are showing
these unexpected subtle risings
that find expression in the empty trees.Source: Famous Poets and Poems
National Poetry Month
One of my goals this year is to get back to poetry writing in a serious way. There was a time when I wrote poetry every single day, but that was a long time ago. Since April is National Poetry Month, it’s a perfect time to attack my goal with total abandon, and I’ll be kicking it off with some momentum since I’ve already been making headway by reading, writing, and listening to poetry almost every day for several weeks.
Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.
Now is the time time to engage with poetry. Here are a few ways you can get started:
- Great writing is rooted in good reading. Sign up to receive a poem a day for the month of April.
- Want to dive right in to poetry writing? Sign up for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). You’ll notice that many other sites are promoting NaPoWriMo — be sure to go to napowrimo.net, because that’s the source that truly started the movement.
- Head over to Read Write Poem, which is packed with awesome resources for poetry writing, including a forum, poetry challenges, and regular articles that are relevant to the poetry community.
- My favorite poetry resource in the world, where you can listen to some of the most creative talents perform their work: IndieFeed: Performance Poetry. If you use iTunes, be sure to subscribe.
Most importantly, have fun. Poetry is meant to be enjoyed and appreciated. Get out your old books (yes, even nursery rhymes and children’s poetry) and revel in the magic. This month, I’m working my way through Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words
This Month at Writing Forward
In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ll be focusing exclusively on poetry here at Writing Forward throughout April. I want to touch on a little bit of everything regarding poetry and poetry writing, so we’ll look at form, feature a poet, and try a couple of poetry writing exercises. So stay tuned, and keep your pencils sharpened for a month packed with delightful antics in poetry.
Thanks for the reminder. I have at least half a dozen poetry books on shelf, all purchased with the best of intentions. I hereby pledge to put my normal reading habits on hold this month and make good on those intentions.
Also, I promise to not ‘just’ read my Ogden Nash collection.
Awesome! I’m working my way through the IndieFeed Performance Poetry podcast. I’ve gotten behind and have to catch up on several months, so that is one of my missions for April. Another poetry project I’m working in is going through the hundreds of poems I’ve written (and never submitted) and organizing them, revising, and preparing them for submission (finally).
Also, just to help insure that every corner of the web is touched by the frenzy of the Apple iPad release, you could consider the opportunities for poetry presentation and experimentation that the ubiquity of iPad like devises could create?
That’s a really pompous sentence, isn’t it? But I like it anyway. Figures. After all, it is April 1st.
I’d love to get an iPad. I imagine it’s going to have an enormous effect on publishing because now even more consumers will have ebook readers at their disposal, increasing ebook sales immediately. Should be interesting to follow, and I definitely think poets need to harness all new technology, including ebook readers like the iPad (I know — it does so much more — someone should invent a “poetry game” for the device).
Came back to this, because there are a couple poetry apps for the iPad now. One is the predictable Magnetic Poetry clone. The other is interesting. PortaPoet combines a rhyming dictionary with a text editor. It is available on all three iPhone OS devices.
I’ll definitely have to check those out, and maybe I’ll write reviews for the apps. Thanks for the tip Mikel!
Rilke is one of my favorite writers. Do you know “Letters to a young poet”? It is a little, delicate book full of advice for poetry writing and for life (in case you knew it, I’m sure you’ll have read it a dozen times like me!)
.-= Nacho Jordi´s last blog ..Ask and thou will have: creating a vision board =-.
I have heard of “Letters to a Young Poet” and have perused it but I don’t have a copy. Add that to my ever-growing wish list!