National Poetry Month

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.  ~John Keats

Each year the month of April is set aside as National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate poets and their craft. Various events are held throughout the month by the Academy of American Poets and other poetry organizations.  The Academy has a website here where you can find information on poets, their poetry, and ways to celebrate this month.

I found one of my favorite poems on the above site--Spring and Fall by Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Hopkins was an English poet of the Victorian era. His experimental explorations in prosody (especially sprung rhythm) and his use of imagery established him as a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse.

Spring and Fall
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
to a young child Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! ás the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sórrow's spríngs áre the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It ís the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.

I encourage you to check out The Academy of American Poets website, Poetry.org, and find a poem that speaks to you.