National Poetry Month 2020!

From The Poem Farm Archives, 2017

Happy National Poetry Month Eve!  National Poetry Month, inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, is a month-long celebration of all things poem.  You can learn more about this four weeks of literary joy, download or order a free (beautiful!) Poetry Month Poster, find 30 ways to celebrate, and get ready for Poem in Your Pocket Day at poets.org.

Each year, for the past 11 years, along with many other writers, I choose to write and share a poem each day. It has been interesting for me to organize these poems around themes, and during the weeks before April, I find myself thinking about possible ideas.  Here's a timeline of my past Poetry Month projects.

2010 - Birth of The Poem Farm -  I wrote a poem each day for a month, beginning actually, on March 29, 2010. This blog just to be a one month project, just for me, to get me writing again as I awaited the publication of FOREST HAS A SONG.  At the end of April 2010, I was having too much fun to stop, decided to go for one whole year, publishing a poem at The Poem Farm each day.  And I stayed to post on Fridays.

2011 - Daily Poems Again - For each day of April 2011, I continued to write and share daily poems. However, I had no theme as the blog was just entering its second year.

2012 - A-Z Dictionary Hike - Here's where the themes began.  Each day of April 2012, I opened my children's dictionary to a different letter, starting with A, ending with Z.  Eyes closed, I pointed to a word and this word became the title of that day's poem.

2013 - Drawing into Poems - For each day of April 2013, I slowed myself down and looked closely at an object, drawing it with black pen into my notebook. On some days, I wrote poems from these drawings, but on many days, I simply allowed the looking-drawing practice to practice becoming a closer observer.

2014 - Thrift Store - For each day of April 2014, I wrote a poem from a photograph of an item I found in a thrift store.  These poems are no longer at The Poem Farm.

2015 - Sing That Poem - For each day of April 2015, I wrote a poem to the meter of a well-known tune and challenged readers to match the poem to the tune by seeing if it was singable to the same meter. One of these singable poems ended up in my book WITH MY HANDS: POEMS ABOUT MAKING THINGS.

2016 - Wallow in Wonder - For my 2016 National Poetry Month project, I celebrated learning and writing from learning, writing poems from each daily Wonder at Wonderopolis.  I have not yet collected these posts into one post, but I may one day.

2017 - Writing the Rainbow - Each day of April 2017, I randomly selected a different Crayola crayon from a new box of 64.  Each day, I wrote a poem inspired by the color I chose.  These poems all ended up telling the story of a young city girl and the moments of her daily life and are no longer here at the blog.

2018 - 1 Subject *** 30 Ways - Each day of April 2018, I wrote daily poems focused on the constellation Orion.  Each poem played with a different poetic technique, and I used the lessons in my own book, POEMS ARE TEACHERS: HOW STUDYING POETRY STRENGTHENS WRITING IN ALL GENRES, to stretch my writing.  These poems are not currently online.

2019 - Tell a Poemstory - Last year's Poetry Month project was a series of 30 free verse poems that told a story about a boy named John and a dog named Betsy and a lady named Betsy. I am so happy to report that these will be soon published by Eerdmans.

2020

For this year's poetry project, I have decided to introduce surprise. Each April day:

• I will share a POEMS CAN phrase about writing poetry.
• I will roll three word dice.
• If a die rolls blank, I will not reroll it.
• I will write a poem inspired by 1, 2, or all 3 of the face-up words.

I welcome anyone who wishes to join me in playing ROLL THE DICE!  You are welcome to write from the words I roll, to fold up your own words on scraps of paper and draw from there, to point to random words in a book and be inspired...or to choose a word from your mind and heart.

During this strange time, I am giving daily writing chats from Betsy the Writing Camper, and those will also match this project. I will crosspost the videos in both places. Feel free to comment with your poem if you wish. Happy National Poetry Month Eve to all!

Each Friday of National Poetry Month, Heinemann has generously offered to gift a copy of my book POEMS ARE TEACHERS to someone who has commented during the week.  I will keep track of comments and will draw one name each Thursday evening, to be announced each Friday of the month.  Thank you, Heinemann!  To be entered into these drawings, please leave your e-mail address or Twitter name so that I can contact you if you win.

To learn about many wonderful National Poetry Month projects happening throughout the Kidlitosphere this April, visit Jama's warm and whimsical blog, Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Feel free to comment with your poem if you wish. Happy National Poetry Month Eve to all.

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