You're just in time to read a rhyme

April is an important month in our family: National Poetry Month. Growing up, we celebrated with a book fest in our living room, where Grandma spread piles of her favorite poetry books across our couches and we each picked out a few for our personal collections. Now we visit a local bookstore, where her generosity continues to fill out our shelves.

With little prompting, she can quote “there once was a puffin just the shape of a muffin, and he lived on an island in the bright blue sea….” And another favorite:

Granddaughter of such a wordy woman, I am proud to to carry on the traditions of book buying, poetry quoting, and word loving. I spoke my first poem into being at age two, a pensive Ode to Mushrooms. I was published in small anthologies throughout adolescence and began a poetry blog in high school.

This time of year, you can often hear Grandma and I quoting from “Paul Revere’s Ride”: “On the eighteenth of April, in ’75, hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year.”

This might be the first time you are hearing of National Poetry Month—and I’m well aware that poetry might not be your cup of tea. But I think there is something wild and wonderful to seeing the world through the eyes of a poet, to choosing to look for the light in things.

I write The Weekly Word to share about using words well, and I think an important piece of that is to celebrate the artistry of language.

I wrote poetry like Emily Dickenson: to be understood.

I wrote poetry like Shakespeare: to play with language.

I wrote poetry like Mary Oliver: to ponder the beauty around me.

In a world of Chat GPT and text messages, reading and writing poetry seems to be a lost art. It’s too impractical, too flowery, and you can wonder what’s the point? 

The point of poetry is to remind us of our humanity. To pause in wonder, in quiet, in reflection, and to invite another to slow down and listen, too. Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that important?

As for April and National Poetry Month…

It’s not too late

To celebrate!

I won’t be trite—

But read or write

A rhyme

(you still have time!)

Cheerily,

Emily M

P.S. A trip down memory lane had me reading through the poetry blog I filled for years, and this line from a poem dedicated to camping with my father felt fitting to share.

“The days out at the old Colorado cabin were wild with cedar scent and summer honey.

Every night I wished for a firefly until one night I saw fire fly above me

in a sky soaked with stars, and when my father’s hand found mine

I knew that we are never quite what others expect of us—and yet we are still enough.”