Poetry all over the place

National Poetry Month -- is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the great reasons (besides the gradually improving weather) to be glad it's April. This year's theme, resilience, seems right for the year we've had (and seem to be continuing to have) under various stages of lockdown and social distancing. 

As a constant reader, I tend to poke around in genres. And it seems, even when I'm putting my focus on poetry, more than one genre insists on being present. The three books above serve to illustrate this. 

The one on the left, Scratching Initials, is a self-published homage to the author's sister. It's a blend of poems and black-and-white drawings, quite a lovely little book that contains a nice range of poetic forms -- prose poems, ghazals and haibun. 

The one on the right, burninghouse, is a taut collection by a writer whose work feels firmly grounded in Atlantic Canada. Feminism is the guiding principle in these poems -- a book worth taking the time to find -- or at least that's my opinion. 

The one in the middle, 100 Poems to Break Your Heart, does much more than the title suggests. Each of the 100 poems in this anthology is accompanied by a short essay that enriches anyone's reading of the poem. And it isn't so much that the author, noted poet Edward Hirsch, offers ongoing heartbreak; his words -- and the poems -- provide solace, something I suspect so many of us are now in need of. 

And if you're ready to celebrate National Poetry Month with poems of your own, here's a link to a list of inspirations that might get you started. Or, for more detailed instructions (note: they change, day to day) here's a blog for NaPoWriMo (which has added 'Glo' to its name, indicating it's now National Global Poetry Writing Month) with amazing suggestions -- including one, for a 'deck' of word cards which seems actually to have been part of the method Linda Pearce used in Scratching Initials. 

Once you've started writing poems, I hope you might work up enough courage to enter this year's 2-Day Poem Contest, an adventure that's always interesting (to put it mildly -- try it and you might see what I mean). Although the event takes place April 23rd to 25th, the deadline for registering is April 16 -- soon. 

The choice of how to celebrate is yours, and no doubt there'll be more poetry-themed posts during this glorious month that celebrates this dear-to-my-heart art form.