day 83: national poetry month part i of ii

April is National Poetry Month, a month-long celebration of poetry throughout the United States! This event was founded by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 in order to wide the attention of individuals and the media to poetry: the art of it, our poetic heritage, poetry books, living poets, and more.

According to the National Poetry Month site, the goals of National Poetry Month are to

§        Highlight the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets

§        Introduce more Americans to the pleasures of reading poetry

§        Bring poets and poetry to the public in immediate and innovative ways

§        Make poetry a more important part of the school curriculum

§        Increase the attention paid to poetry by national and local media

§        Encourage increased publication, distribution, and sales of poetry books

§        Increase public and private philanthropic support for poets and poetry

According to the aforementioned site, the Academy celebrates National Poetry Month in the following ways:

§        Posters: Each year the Academy creates and distributes nearly 200,000 official NPM posters, which are mailed for free to teachers, librarians, and booksellers nationwide.

§        Events: The Academy presents several special events and readings in April. Some of our special events include a 10 Years/10 Cities reading series and our star-studded annual Poetry & The Creative Mind.

§        Publicity: To ensure that poetry gains national attention in the media each April, the Academy mails several thousand press releases and media kits each year to editors and journalists across the country. As a result, thousands of articles about poetry appear in newspapers, magazines, and online media outlets. The Academy also acts as the official clearing house for news and information about National Poetry Month.

*Inspiration & Guidance: The Academy offers a plethora of practical resources for celebrating NPM, including tips for teaching poetry during April, creating a poetry book display in your bookstore or library, presenting a poetry reading or contest, and much more

Tomorrow—suggestions from the National Poetry Month for ways that individuals and teachers to celebrate this month.

In the meantime, I thought we could celebrate it here on Language Lady 365 by doing the following:

(1) Publishing poetry of the readers—you! I would love to publish some poems written by readers, so send them via INBOX, and I will put them up in the coming days;

(2) Have a poetry challenge—challenging readers to write a four line (or so) poem with words from a given word list. More on the latter later; in the meantime, send your poems in!