No April Fools here, except maybe me. Just a tiny bit foolish to think I could manage to get this newsletter out yesterday in the midst of an extremely busy week. But a day late means I can fully embrace the start of National Poetry Month.
Whoever decides these things chose well. April feels a suitable month for poetry. Moody, in-between weather, regardless of the hemisphere. A few dramatic holidays. Plus plenty of excellent poets celebrate April birthdays: Maya Angelou, William Wordsworth, Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, Seamus Heaney, Louise Gluck, Constantine Peter Cavafy, and of course, Shakespeare. Though that could hardly have been a deciding factor; wonderful poets celebrate birthdays every month of the year.
Poetry comes to me in seasons. I don’t mean spring or summer but in waves, periods where I am more liable to reach for a favorite poet or worn anthology, or to seek out new-to-me poets hoping for inspiration or solace. When I cannot bear to read, when my attention span has flown or my own mood had gone down some deep hole, poems sometimes fit through the cracks in my mind to reach me, to drag me back up to the surface.
I subscribed to Poetry a few months ago, in one of those quests for new poets. It shows up in my mailbox every month and it generally takes a bit of time for me to reach for it. Then I dip in and out, late nights when my mind won’t still, early Sunday mornings over coffee, mid-day searching for a tiny island of calm. I’ve found poems I like but nothing I love yet. But then I remind myself how many poets have been sifted into obscurity over the centuries, leaving those names we know, the words that made lasting impressions, sometimes only in fragments. And poetry feels fragile.
The rhythms stay with me, first. I feel the music of poetry, the sort that reverberates through your limbs, bounces off your breast bone. Then emotions. Words last. Which is strange, given my trade, but I think for me the best poetry sneaks up on you. If the words are doing their job, you notice them last. They are a receptacle, the thing that delivers the thoughts and feelings, and only once you pause at the last do you look back and think, Oh. Yes.
Do you read poetry? Whose words linger for you? I still reach for so many I studied in school. Eliot, cummings, Yeats, Frost. And peripherally, not studied but discovered more or less at the same time: Sylvia Plath. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Dylan Thomas. And more recently, Anna Akhmatova, Maggie Smith, Ilya Kaminsky. But it’s the poetry of my childhood that remains stuck in my head. Dr. Seuss. Ogden Nash. Shel Silverstein. Rhymes and rhythms, round and round.
*Title from the poem by Ogden Nash.
I have mostly outgrown my poetry-writing days, though the stray stanza still shows up in my journal when my thoughts are particularly twisty. But I enjoy the challenge, the thought process. There’s a poetry challenge on Instagram for April: Escapril. They’re featuring a prompt each day, with instructions to write a poem, or if you prefer a bit of prose or flash fiction, post an image of it, and tag them in, each day this month.
Anyone feel like flexing their poetry muscles?
The challenge to write poetry reminds me that this tiny book, written by Charlotte Bronte at thirteen and containing what are likely the final pieces of her work to be widely unknow—ten short poems—has emerged from a private collection and will be center stage on April 21st at the opening night of the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair. They’re asking $1.25 million for it, so I shall have to cross my fingers that whomever purchases it will make it available for wider publication.
One of the poems is titled “On Seeing the Ruins of the Tower of Babel.” I try to imagine coming up with a title like that at thirteen, never mind the poem that must follow. It’s not hard to see how an author with that spark of creativity so young would survive to still sit on our bookshelves nearly two hundred years later.
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LitHub posted recently about the relationship between art and writing and reading: 14 Contemporary Artists on How Reading Influences Their Work. That influence certainly flows both ways. So many writers delve into other aspects of the arts, whether as a different facet of their career or simply for pleasure. I represent writers who post their paintings on their Instagram, send me lovely watercolor cards, make delicate jewelry. One does beautiful graphics work for websites and book covers. Writer friends knit and crochet, fashion pottery, and the list goes on. How much cross pollination takes place through these activities? I wish we could watch the brain at work during creative endeavors, see the flashes of insight zipping around. I imagine it as another form of art—light and color and energy in a sort of fireworks display.
I marvel at the creative impulse and how it presents itself. We create almost as we breathe when we are children, and yet that habit fades for so many as the responsibilities of adulthood rear up and swallow our days. But the spark survives, and it’s fascinating how often one artistic endeavor leads to a creative buffet.
How many of the arts and crafts intrigue you? Which have you embraced? What still calls your name? Make April the month you try something new. Go play.
A few more links to share:
Bridgerton Keeps Perpetuating One of Hollywood’s Most Stubborn Myths – A look at the truth behind Regency-era corsets.
Selling Books Helped Me Get My Groove Back – A writer on how the art of recommending stories helped her find her way back to writing her own.
How Comics Were Everything Jim Crow America Never Wanted Black Women to Be – A profile of legendary comics writer Jackie Ormes.
Melissa Febos on the Value of Craft for Writing and Life – A look at writing craft in conjunction with the discussion about writing stories based in trauma or violation.
Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon – Sign up for this fun book-based event, taking place April 30th.
Currently in my teacup:
Soho Black Tea by Harney & Sons
Currently on my nightstand:
THE ATLAS SIX by Olivie Blake
That’s it for now. Thank you for reading! Drop a comment below if you’d like to chat about poetry or arts and crafts, or anything at all. I’m always happy to hear what you’re up to. Wishing you a lovely Friday and a wonderful weekend. Until next time.🥰
Thanks for the escapril info! I'll give it a try!