A Month of Poetic Posts

It's back! April brings with it the status of National Poetry Month, and I am going to celebrate once more, just I have in 2007 and 2008, by posting a poem daily. There are many projects ongoing to celebrate the month, and one I find fascinating, which will also give you a poem a day, is the League of Canadian Poets' Poetry Planet blog. You could also read daily interviews with poets over at the National Post's Ampersand, or perhaps read Ben Okri's line-by-line poem he is publishing via Twitter.

I'm setting up a display at the library and hoping to hear some poets reading this month. What about you? Are you organizing/attending/celebrating Poetry events this month?

For the first poem of the month, I am going to share an April-ish verse by American poet Richard Wilbur (b. 1921), beautifully illustrated with a photo by (and of) my lovely niece.

A Storm in April

Some winters, taking leave,

Deal us a last, hard blow,

Salting the ground like Carthage

Before they will go.

But the bright, milling snow

Which throngs the air today—

It is a way of leaving

So as to stay.

The light flakes do not weigh

The willows down, but sift

Through the white catkins, loose

As petal-drift

Or in an up-draft lift

And glitter at a height,

Dazzling as summer’s leaf-stir

Chinked with light.

This storm, if I am right,

Will not be wholly over

Till green fields, here and there,

Turn white with clover,

And through chill air the puffs of milkweed hover.

Richard Wilbur