Did you know that April is National Poetry month?
National Poetry Month is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
This annual celebration of poetry originated in the USA in 1996 as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry. Two years later the celebrations spread to Canada and its popularity continues to grow. (The UK celebrates Poetry Day in October so we’ve still to get on board with this celebration.)
Something many of you might not realise is that I was published as a poet several years before I made my debut as an author. Poetry has always been close to my heart.
English class was along time ago but three poems from those high school days have stuck with me over the years: –
The Coming of the Wee Malkies by Stephen Mulrine
In The Snack Bar by Edwin Morgan
An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by WB Yeats
(Feel free to Google them once you’ve finished reading this.)
When my son was little, he attended a speech and drama group through his nursery class where he had to learn various poems. Memories of two of those continue to make me smile: –
Thank You, Dad, For Everything by Doug MacLeod
Daddy Fell into The Pond by Alfred Noyes
Over the years I have shared many of own my own poems on my blog. I love to write acrostic poems where the first letter of each line reads downwards to spell a word. There are several of those in my poetry anthology, Beginnings, that I published a couple of years ago.
A bit like journalling, I use poetry to express my unspoken emotions. It can be an amazing emotional release!
I firmly believe that anyone can write poetry. So, my challenge to you, as part of National Poetry Month, is to write a short poem and to share it in the comments below. I’ll never ask anyone to do something that I am not prepared to do myself so here’s mine.
Pick a theme or a word.
Ordinary items will do.
Explore its meaning to you.
Test your abilities.
Relax and enjoy writing it down.
You might surprise yourself.
For those of you who have not yet found my poetry anthology, here’s the link-
Beginnings – a collection of poems eBook : McCallum, Coral: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
(image sourced via Google- credits to the owner)
Coral McCallum 