Celebrate National Poetry Month

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I love National Poetry Month.

So many of these annual “— months” (April is “the month” of at least 13 national issues, including Soft Pretzels and Soyfoods) seem gratuitous, insincere, obligatory. But during National Poetry Month, you can have Poets.org deliver a poem to your e-mailbox each morning, start the day with a poem, and feel like a patriot for taking the time to do so. What could be better? (Of course we could do this, on our own, every day of the year. But I don’t.)

It is an excellent thing to be reminded that simply stopping to read a poem — especially as, say, Monday morning is just getting going at work, and the week looms long and laborious ahead—can transport a spirit to a completely different plane of existence, bring new insight to the same old, same old, resuscitate a transformative but rarely conjured memory….

Along with Poets.org, I invite you all to: “Celebrate national Poem In Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 29, 2010! The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends on April 29, 2010.” Read more at: http://poets.org/page.php/prmID/406

Let me also call your attention to a poem by a poet I would never have discovered but for Poem-A-Day from Poets.org. Daniel Johnson’s first collection, How to Catch a Falling Knife, comes out this month. http://www.danielbjohnson.com/index.php/?p=113

Prayer for the Collector of Small Animal Skulls

Always Watching Light
and Shadow Skinny
as a Willow Switch
are names I would choose
for the boy skipping stones
across the flooded quarry.
In high summer his hair
is milkweed silk;
thrown into a well,
his voice sinks, thins,
and rebounds,
reedy still.
Look after this child,
cowlicked and burred,
at least out of the corner
of your eye. Selah.
Let him sit late in the day
where he can’t be seen
from the house, Petty Thief
Stripping Petals from a Peony,
white as winter breath:

God is my judge. God
is not. God is my judge.
God is not.
Let petals snow on the lawn.
Let no harm, let no harm come
to the Collector of Small Animal Skulls.


Mary for the Poplar Grove Muse