April is National Poetry Month—let’s celebrate poetry this month. I plan to share poetry on Wednesdays this month for your enjoyment. You say, “I don’t like poetry.” Please, give it a chance this month. Look for the emotion in the poetry—don’t do the high school literature classroom dissection that didn’t make sense to most readers. Look for imagery, delight and emotion! Hopefully, I might convert you this month!
“Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters.”
My favorite poet is Mary Oliver and I’d like to share one of her most popular poems during this National Poetry month:
Wild Geese
| You do not have to be good. |
| You do not have to walk on your knees |
| for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. |
| You only have to let the soft animal of your body |
| love what it loves. |
| Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. |
| Meanwhile the world goes on. |
| Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain |
| are moving across the landscapes, |
| over the prairies and the deep trees, |
| the mountains and the rivers. |
| Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, |
| are heading home again. |
| Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, |
| the world offers itself to your imagination, |
| calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – |
| over and over announcing your place |
| in the family of things. |
http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html
So, what did you think? Can you relate? Did it stir up any emotions at all? I love the opening line, “You do not have to be good.” I felt relief immediately because all my childhood my parents told me to be good!
My book cover for Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir, won 1st place in the March nonfiction book cover contest on AllAuthors.com. Thanks to all who supported me this month by voting on each round! I know I emailed you and posted on all my social media sites many times, but it worked—because of you!
Enjoy my interview on the podcast, The Writing Table
~ Hair on Fire: A Heartwarming & Humorous Christmas Memoir available in audiobook format at the following places:
~SHOP TODAY FOR YOUR AUTOGRAPHED COPY! Shop at my Etsy Shop or my Shopify Store
