April is Poetry Month

Poetry Month

Every April, the world celebrates poetry! The month is a reminder that poets play an integral role in our culture and that poetry matters. To celebrate, we have a lot of opportunities to read, listen, connect, and create with poetry in a variety of ways.

“Poetry is humanity's oldest form of literature–it's both ancient and modern. If you don't like reading it, you can listen to it,” said Jack Kovaleski, Community Engagement Librarian. “If you don't like listening to it, you can write it! Give it a chance and it will surprise you.”

Submitted by Aubrey D. on Thu, 2022-03-31 14:20
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A Short History of DADA

"Beautiful like the chance meeting on a dissection table of a sewing machine and an umbrella." —Compte de Lautréamont

Is it possible for an art movement to be anti-art? What would such a movement (anti-movement?) even look like? For the founders of DADA, which grew out of the aftermath of World War I in Europe, the answer is disruption—of society, of culture, and of art itself. 

Submitted by Bill W. on Tue, 2017-07-25 12:35
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Nostalgia, My Enemy

A great way to explore another culture is through poetry. This book, by one of the best living writers in Arabic, Saadi Youssef, does just that. It also provides beautiful poetry.

Youssef writes about all the traditional topics: love, nature, the changing seasons, and daily activities but he also describes his pain and anger at seeing the damage to his home country. In "A Difficult Variation" he describes his wishes for his native country, "Peace be upon Iraq's hills, its two rivers, the bank and the bend, / upon the palm trees / and the English hamlet gently dragging its clouds."

He writes deeply poignant poems about Iraq. In one he asks, “Is it your fault that once you were born in that country? / Three quarters of a century / and you still pay from your ebbing blood / its tax.”

Submitted by Dory L. on Tue, 2014-09-30 12:50
Nostalgia, My Enemy: Poems
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Another Day in This Here Cosmos

If you’re looking for some interesting new poetry, go no further than Maureen McLane’s new book. Even the titles are inviting: “Another Day in this Here Cosmos,” “OK Fern,” “Tell Us What Happened in the 14th Century,” and “Morning with Adirondack Chair.” McLane writes often about travel, nature, love, but most importantly it’s all filtered through the lens of her mind. Her particular world-view is humorous and serious at the same time, and often feels edgy, new. There’s a sense that she does not take herself too seriously while at the same time, she writes in deep earnest.

One poem begins, “OK fern / I’m your apprentice / I can tell you // apart from your / darker sister.” It ends with a sincere request for the wild plant to tell the narrator what to do with her life. (We’ve all been there speaking to trees or inanimate objects.)

In “Levanto,” a beautiful travel poem, she says, “scant pines / stagger the Apennines / semaphoring….I am older / than the sea / in me.”

Submitted by Dory L. on Tue, 2014-06-17 13:12
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Little Jewels--Haiku

If you like haiku or are merely curious about the art, dive into this book. It traces the origin of the form in English from Ezra Pound’s “In a Station at the Metro” through the effusive Beats (Kerouac, Gary Snyder, and Allen Ginsburg) to contemporary masters of these powerful small poems. In the introduction, Billy Collins describes his love for these small gems and unlike many of the other artists included here, he writes in the familiar 5-7-5 syllabic pattern. 

Here are a few of my favorite haiku included in the collection. But alas, there were so many good ones, it was hard to choose a small sample:


passport check

my shadow waits

across the border                            --George Swede

Submitted by Dory L. on Thu, 2014-01-02 16:12
Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years
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Dog Songs

Who can resist a good dog book? OK so there are a few cat people out there (right here beside me in fact), and bird people, snake people, even for Heaven’s sake, skunk lovers and gerbil-groomers.  But what makes this book special is that it’s a book of poems that gives tribute to the special dogs in renowned nature poet Mary Oliver’s life.

There’s Luke, the junkyard dog, Benjamin, the canine that is always dragging a chewed-through rope,  Bear the small curly-haired who hates to stay overnight at boarding, Bazougey “that dark little dog/ who used to come down the road barking and shining,” Ricky, the talker, and Percy named  after the famous poet Shelley. Oliver penned a tribute to this hound mischievously patterned after Christopher Smart’s “For I will Consider My Cat Jeoffrey.”

Luke was “born in a junkyard, / not even on a bundle of rags/ or the seat of an old wrecked car/ but the dust below.”  This beautiful German Shepherd loved flowers:  “her dark head// and her wet nose/ touching/ the face/ of everyone.”  In the poem’s closing Oliver expresses one thing dogs show us about the world: “we long to be--/ that happy/ in the heaven of earth--/ that wild, that loving.”

Submitted by Dory L. on Mon, 2013-12-16 19:02
Dog Songs: Thirty-Five Dog Songs and One Essay
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Poetry in your Pocket Day

ImageApril is National Poetry Month, and tomorrow is "Poem in your Pocket Day." Here's what the sponsoring organization Poets.org says about it:

"Select a poem, carry it with you, and share it with others throughout the day. You can also share your selection on Twitter by using the hashtag #pocketpoem." One unique way is to switch to old technology--remember the telephone?--and call a friend and read a poem to him or her. What a great way to share this form of oral literature.

Please feel free to scan our large collection of contemporary poetry and classics. American poetry can be found between 811-812 in our stacks, British, between 821-822. If you want to explore poetry from other languages, try 831--German, 841--French, etc. Haiku can be found in the 895s. (They squeezed poetry from many cultures inthe 890s including Russsian, Japanese, Chinese and Inuit.) Also, you can find a large and diverse selection at Poets.org.

I'll get a head-start on the day by sharing one my favorite spring poems with you from Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by e.e. cummings. His love for nature and humanity shines through all his poems.

Submitted by Dory L. on Wed, 2013-04-17 13:54
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