Art by Amber Beilharz
April is here! April is the month of the bunny but to poets, this month welcomes in 30 days of penning poetry and stuffing as many poems into our eyes as well as our ears. National Poetry Month is a feast for poets, it’s a smorgasbord of delight and allows us to indulge in our respect and passion for the craft. For most poets, National Poetry Month means a gruelling 30 poems, a poem a day is kind of like a brain vomit that produces mostly bile but other times, maybe that coin you swallowed as a child and it’s come out all polished. For others, it’s a chance to find old poems and edit them, it’s a bit of cheat’s way but as long as you’re involved in some kind of poetic process, it’s okay. For bloggers, this means a chance to showcase a diverse amount of poets, poetry and resources.
So, here at Metre Maids, this month’s posts are going to be entirely dedicated to celebrating National Poetry Month (NaPo). We have a hoard of likeminded folk: poets and editors who will be throwing posts your way, which we hope will get your cerebral juices going. Our main aim for blogging NaPo is to create a sense of discovery, expand your senses and expose emerging and polished poets—this opens up a world of opportunities and we look forward to sharing this with you.
Some of our guest bloggers (not all) that we’ve lined up are: Ron Koertge, author of several poetry collections, including Indigo, Fever and Geography of the Forehead. Canaan Morse, translator, editor of Pathlight Magazine New Chinese writing. Owen Davidson, co-founder of Couplet Books. Zenobia Frost, author of The Voyage, poetry editor Voiceworks Magazine and Cordite assistant editor. We have many more lovely guest bloggers, stay tuned to find out who they are. Even better, subscribe to our feed so you can get instant updates and stay in the Metre Maids loop.
Here are some ways to celebrate NaPo outside the blogging sphere:
- Write
- Buy a book of poems from a local poet
- Read poetry
- Go to the library
- Attend an open mic event
- Practice reading poetry out loud
- Purchase a poetry app, our favourite is Poetry Foundation
- Support literary magazines by subscribing
- Start a tumblr for your NaPo
- Twitter useful resources
- Submit poetry to magazines