April is National Poetry Month

Established by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month has been celebrated in April since 1996.  As outlined on poets.org (click here to access the page), the concept of the month long, national celebration is to "widen the attention of individuals and the media - to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern." 

We are celebrating National Poetry Month here at the Community Library with a display dedicated to poetry books. The display is located on the lower level of the library.

How will you celebrate? Here are some ideas: you could read one of the poetry books available at the Community Library, you could revisit a favorite poem from your youth, organize a poetry reading with friends, celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 24th, put a poem in a letter to a dear family member or use chalk to write a poem on the sidewalk...the possibilities are endless! Visit poets.org for more celebration ideas.

Below is a sample of the poetry books we have available at the Community Library. 

Book Summaries (from left to right):

Break the Glass by Jean Valentine: "In her eleventh collection, National Book Award-winning poet Jean Valentine characteristically weds a moral imperative to imaginative and linguistic leaps and bounds. Whether writing elegies, meditations on aging, or an extended homage to Lucy, the earliest known hominid, the pared-down compactness of her tone and vision reveals a singular voice in American poetry." (Provided by Publisher)

American Hybrid, edited by Cole Swenson and David St. John: "An anthology of works representing a poetic form incorporating traditional and experimental styles features the works of more than seventy poets including Jorie Graham, Albert Goldbarth, and Lyn Hejinian; in a volume that is complemented by biographical information and introductory essays on the evolution of the hybrid style." (Provided by Publisher)

Alight by Fady Joudah: "With anatomical precision, Joudah illustrates scenes that are at once uncanny and contemporary, be it a Bedouin woman's lavender mourning veil, the chrome doors to an alchemist's home, or the mysterious speaker in 'Smoke,' who exits abruptly and claims to have 'scripts to write and scrolls to find,' a testament to the duties of attending physician and displaced poet alike. In both roles, Joudah has records to keep and history to revisit, and does so beautifully." (Booklist Reviews)

Captain Asks for a Show of Hands by Nick Flynn: "Terse, at times horrifying, and hard to forget, Flynn's third collection of poems—the first since his memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (2004) made him something of a celebrity—tackles topics familiar from the last decade's news: the captain of the title, who appears in the longest poems, is at once an absent, wicked, or unanswering God, a vague father, a political authority, and a military leader in a place much like Abu Ghraib. " (Publishers Weekly Reviews)