April Is

In "The Waste Land," T.S. Eliot wrote:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

But I think you should think of April as National Humor Month as well as being National Poetry Month.

Why not save get your dull roots out of the spring pain and rain and save time by combining both of those celebrations by reading (or listening) to some humorous poetry. You might want to start with some  Billy Collins.

Platonic Love Poem with Picture By: Rakoon

Hear. I'm calling you in silence,

won't you feel my cry?

Nights and days have passed and 

my heart has been looking back

for all the time.

It's blind and sad now: it feels betrayed

and hurt and it's holding its pieces toghether 

not to fall into the bitterness of apathy.

The mind suffers for its painful friend and 

it lives in a daydream.

I find some peace there, under that

imponent, bloomy tree: I'd stand still,

a silent wind caressing the long hair away.

My eyes looking tenderly into yours: 

two mirrors that shine of a same light;

We wouldn't dare to step forward at

once, but you'd finally be won by that

most innocent desire. As if two more ancient

voices were calling each other in a desperate 

agony, we'd get closer and closer; the memory of

reality would stop us at first, but that place,

it is most hidden and far from it.

You will be just in front of me and after a little while

you'll take my hand into yours.

I love you, I love you.

I'll always be here for you when

you need.

Hear me, hear my weak cry,

you should know all that...!!!

Getting the Daily News from Poems

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

   �  William Carlos Williams


I am still writing my poem a day for 2014, and some people have taken on a poem a day for National Poetry Month. But if you don't feel you can write every day, you can certainly read a poem a day. And reading poetry is an important part of becoming a poet too.

Some people use the daily poem at The Writers Almanac or at Poetry Daily.

The Academy of American Poets is another source. They have a new design for their Poem-a-Day and they will now be syndicating Poem-a-Day. This means that the new, previously unpublished poems we are publishing during the week will be available to editors at a wide range of newspapers, news websites, and magazines.

Get out the news in poems!

You might also want to celebrate the month with a donation to Poem-A-Day or help support Poetry Daily or support the Writers Almanac.

Christmas Light

via the writersalmanac.publicradio.org

Christmas Light


When everyone had gone
I sat in the library
With the small silent tree,
She and I alone.
How softly she shone!

And for the first time then
For the first time this year,
I felt reborn again,
I knew love's presence near.

Love distant, love detached
And strangely without weight,
Was with me in the night
When everyone had gone
And the garland of pure light
Stayed on, stayed on.

by May Sarton, from May Sarton, Collected Poems, 1930-1993

December, Outdoors

John Updike's poetry is often overlooked in favor of his novels and short stories. It is often noted that his fiction is "poetic" and rich in its use of language. But the poems don't get much attention.

Updike wrote some witty, light verse and liked to play with words and language in his poetry. But he also wrote a good number of solid poems.

I like this one which was posted on the writersalmanac.publicradio.org site this month.

holding the dunes, originally uploaded by Ken Ronkowitz.

December, Outdoors

Clouds like fish shedding scales are stretched
thin above Salem. The calm cold sea
accepts the sun as an equal, a match:
the horizon a truce, the air all still.
Sun, but no shadows somehow, the trees
ideally deleafed, a contemplative gray
that ushers into the woods (in summer
crammed with undergrowth) sheer space.

How fortunate it is to move about
without impediment, Nature having
no case to make, no special weather to plead,
unlike some storm-obsessed old symphonist.
The day is piano; I see buds so subtle
they know, though fat, that this is no time to bloom.

by John Updike, from Endpoint and Other Poems