April is...30 Days of Poetry

April is National Poetry Month.

2014 National Poetry Month Poster

Started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets (poets.org), National Poetry Month is a way to celebrate poetry and its place in American culture. Ever think about how much a part of our culture poetry really is? Think for a minute about some of the idioms we use:

• When someone gets a payback for something bad he has done, we call it "poetic justice."
• When someone ignores rules or plays loose with facts we sometimes call it "poetic license."
• When someone speaks eloquently or in a rhythmic manner we often say that person "waxes poetic."
• When an athlete performs her sport flawlessly, we say that she is "poetry in motion."

"Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.  Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable.  Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away."–Carl Sandburg

During the month of April, the Library and Learning Resource Center will celebrate National Poetry Month by posting on this blog and other social media sites a book spine poem every weekday. A book spine poem is simply arranging books in a stack in which the titles become the lines of a poem. Here is a sample of one of last year's book spine poems about a cow's life:

Join us throughout April as we celebrate National Poetry Month.