Yes, it’s April.
NaPoWriMo poem-a-day challenges are great for priming the creativity pump. Eventually, poems flow through your mind and all you have to do is record them.
Sometimes it works that way.
I’m taking it easy this year. I’m paying more attention to reading poems than writing them. This year I’ve been seeing things I never used to notice. Poetic devices, in particular, thanks to the class and workshop teachers I’ve had this year: Tom Montag, John Sibley Williams, Maggie Smith, Ilya Kaminsky, and Jude Nutter. (Does it seem like I’m bragging when I list such eminent names? All right, I brag.)
My most recent issue of 32 Poems is so marked up I wonder if I’ll be able to read anything from it in the future.
The only reason I allowed myself to scribble in it is because periodicals are consumable products, according to the State of Wisconsin (as a librarian, I always worked for public universities and had to think of things like that). And because the subscription is mine, not a library’s, in case you wondered.
Speaking of periodicals, I recommend this one: Terminus Magazine Belarus Edition. It features poems and translations by poets from the U.S.A. and Belarus. It was my first introduction to Belarusian literature and now I am haunted. This issue and the Atlanta Poetry Translation Festival made me realize how reading poetry from other countries makes your brain feel different: bigger, wider, with new networks forming.
On another note, we found yellow crocuses in our front yard today. 💛
Image by Walter Frehner from Pixabay