National Poetry Month is observed in April of each year. It is a time to appreciate those expressing themselves in that almost musical, often rhyming way. Although many poems do not have a rhyming scheme, some of the most well-remembered ones possess that feeling of poetry in motion.
Perhaps many of us can think back to an early memory of someone reciting “Roses are red, violets are blue…” In school, that was a popular one used by awkward kids to express the fact they “liked” another awkward kid.
Poetry is always around us in the classical works of many famous poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley; Edgar Alan Poe; Walt Whitman; Phyllis Wheatley; Emily Dickinson; Paul Laurence Dunbar; Robert Frost; and others such as Gwendolyn Brooks; James Weldon Johnson; Nikki Giovanni; Amanda Gorman; and so many more.
Also, poetry fully gravitates into greater movement when it is accompanying music and dance; appearing in speeches; and as it started to grab our ears and interest in the form of rap by writers such as Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, and many others before and after them.
Poetry existed in other centuries as noted in the poems about love, nature, and the universe written by Rumi, the 13th-century poet. His work and the poetry of everyone mentioned, as well as the writings of numerous additional poets, can be found in lots of books.
Your favorite library has poetry to entertain you, mystify you, and make you smile. We like to talk about having a poem in your pocket. Think about your favorite poem or poet and reminisce on why you gravitate to those writings, time and again. Perhaps it is because so many of them are ageless.
HAPPY NATIONAL POETRY MONTH!
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