What are you doing to celebrate National Poetry Month?
I subscribe to Poem-a-Day, a daily email from the Academy of American Poets, which inaugurated National Poetry Month 17 years ago. I don’t read the poem every day, but I do read it most days. Sometimes I’m moved to tears, or to laughter. 
Sometimes I’m left shaking my head, trying to imagine what a particular poem was about. But I’m always left thinking about word choice and rhythm and emotion. In a small moment, I’m left steeped in some feeling that I don’t always want to experience directly, but which leaves me a better person for having been exposed to it.
I am certainly a better writer for the poetry I read. And one of the things I love about National Poetry Month is that it reminds me to read more poetry.
Today’s Poem-A-Day is “Compassion IV” by Noelle Kocot, from a series titled after John Coltrane’s “Compassion.” I loved, especially, its ending:
… A gap in the mind,
A spangled street, my spine, perfectly erect now,
Chooses these words, yet it as if I have no choice.
I read a second poem too, which is a very special one for Mac and me. A few years ago, we established the Page Davidson Clayton Prize at the Michigan Quarterly Review to honor my mom-in-law, and to support emerging poets in the way she encouraged us in our own writing. This morning, I reread the poem chosen as the 2012 winner, “The Hill” by Margaret Reges, from the MQR Winter 2012 issue.
Thinking of my mom-in-law, I also reread Mac’s very moving piece, “The Poetry Safety Net,”
and last year’s Page Davidson Clayton prize winner, “what you’d find buried in the dirt under charles f. kettering sr. high school (detroit, michigan)” by francine j. harris. I’ll be writing more on that poem – and francine’s new book, “allegiance” – later in the month, probably for Poem-In-Your-Pocket Day April 18.
With all that inspiration, I should be able to do some terrific writing today. Now if only my taxes were done, so I could. Happy first day of National Poetry Month! – Meg
