Tag: National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month

April 1, 2013

poetry monthIf you’re anything like us, you’ve been counting down to this very day.  Besides kick starting the showers that bring the flowers, April 1st officially makes it next year for the Cubs and gives you cause to unleash that new whoopee cushion.  What’s most exciting, however, is that today means National Poetry Month is finally here, and we can get our poetry party started.  You see, today begins Off the Shelf’s 4th annual National Poetry Month extravaganza during which we showcase one staff-picked “Poem of the Day” for the entire month of April.  For your poetry pleasure, we’ll also have plenty of poetry news, quotes, features, and much, much more.  So sit back, relax, and stay awhile.  It’s going to be a good month.

National Poetry Month: April 30th

April 30, 2012

Walking around the Block with a Three-Year-Old by David Wagoner

She sees a starling legs-up in the gutter.
She finds an earthworm limp and pale in a puddle.
What’s wrong with them? she says. I tell her they’re dead.
.
She scowls at me. She stares at her short shadow
And makes it dance in the road. She shakes its head.
Daddy, you don’t look pretty, she says. I agree.
.
She stomps on a sewer grid where the slow rain
Is vanishing. Do you want to go down there?
I tell her no. Neither do I, she says.
.
She picks up a stone. This is an elephant.
Because it’s heavy, smooth, slate gray, and hers,
I tell her it’s very like an elephant.
.
We’re back. The starling is gone. Where did it go?
She says. I tell her I don’t know, maybe
A cat took it away. I think it’s lost.
.
I tell her I think so too. But can’t you find it?
I tell her I don’t think so. Let’s go look.
I show her my empty hands, and she takes one.

This poem was selected by Russell J. (Readers’ Services)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 29th

April 29, 2012

I Wrote a Good Omelet by Nikki Giovanni

I wrote a good omelet…and ate
a hot poem…after loving you
.
Buttoned my car…and drove my
coat home…in the rain…
after loving you
.
I goed on red…and stopped on
green…floating somewhere in between…
being here and being there…
after loving you
.
I rolled my bed…turned down
my hair…slightly
confused but…I don’t care…
.
Laid out my teeth…and gargled my
gown…then I stood
…and laid me down…
.
To sleep…
after loving you

This poem was selected by Lesley W. (Head of Adult Services)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 27th

April 27, 2012

Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant

     To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—

National Poetry Month: April 26th

April 26, 2012

Stays by Jill Alexander Essbaum

Everything alludes to the mood of us.
This color, for instance, the color of you.
Blood-blue like the walls of the house we share.
Blue-black like the ravels in my hair.
.
Everything habituates the shatter of our glass.
This tiger of yours that mauls on command.
Or yours, the upper hand of dispute.
The furnace you promised to fix but good—
.
But didn’t. But haven’t. Or: Won’t. Ain’t gonna.
A tainted summer of untoward words.
The unnerved synapse ‘twixt said and heard.
The lapse in my verve,
.
The slap of your verbs.
How every well we’ve dowsed runs dry.
The drowsy oh wells, the soused betrothals,
The stab-wounds we dressed up in bedclothes.
.
Everything augments the flaw of us.
The lusters we lack, the lusts we’ve glutted,
The delusions we’ve slutted on analyst’s couches.
Your Stalinist urges. My purges. I reach
.
For the one-two punch of panic pills.
You sit and sort the bills. A pair of parallel hells.
The gods that goad us know our names.
The books you read disclaim my pain–
.
And everything stays the same, the same.

This poem was selected by Russell J. (Readers’ Services)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 25th

April 25, 2012

Eating Poetry by Mark Strand

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs bum like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

This poem was selected by Rika G. (Reference Librarian)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 24th

April 24, 2012

“Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
 .
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash a little Bird
That kept so many warm –
 .
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

This poem was selected by Laura H. (Readers’ Services)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 23rd (Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!)

April 23, 2012

Sonnet XXII by William Shakespeare

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O! therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
    Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
    Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.

This poem was selected by Lesley W. (Head of Adult Services)

Poetry Copyright Notice

National Poetry Month: April 22nd (Happy Earth Day!)

April 22, 2012

Having Intended to Merely Pick on an Oil Company, the Poem Goes Awry by Bob Hicok

Never before have I so resembled British Petroleum.
They–it?–are concerned about the environment.
I–it?–am concerned about the environment.
They–him?–convey their concern through commercials,
in which a man talks softly about the importance
of the Earth.  I–doodad?–convey my concern
through poems, in which my fingers type softly
about the importance of the Earth.  They–oligarchs?–
have painted their slogans green.  I–ineffectual
left-leaning emotional black hole of a self-semaphore?–
recycle.  Isn’t a corporation technically a person Continue reading “National Poetry Month: April 22nd (Happy Earth Day!)” →

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