Happy National Poetry Month!... Who Are Your Favorite Poets or Poems?

Happy National Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month! And I've been so busy, I haven't even talked about it yet! Here is a photo of some of my favorite poetry books too. I have them lying around the house to be picked up and enjoyed whenever the mood strikes. 

In general, I think people have a love/hate relationship with poetry. Either you enjoy it or you can't be bothered. There are all kinds of poetry, from Shakespeare's sonnets to more contemporary written poems, such as by poet Billy Collins... there are free verse, Rhymed, Epics, Lyrical, Haiku, Blank verse...

Though I do enjoy reading the Romantics of the late 18th and early 19th century, my favorite poets are from the 20th and 21st century. Let me share some of my favorite poets today...

Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Donald Hall, Jo Harjo, Nikki Giovanni, Seamus Heaney, Wistawa Szymborska, Marge Piercy, Tracy K. Smith, Julia Hartwig, Jane Kenyon, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost,  Federico García Lorca, and Donna Marie Merritt. (Donna is a CT poet who was gracious enough to come to my book club for a night of poetry and her poetry is wonderful!)

This week while looking at new book releases I came upon a newly released book of poetry called Size of Your Joy: Poems by Elise Powers. I found her website, sampled some of her poetry( you should too!) and really liked it… and ordered her new poetry book to add to my growing collection. (Look for a review of her book too!).

Some poetry collections that I like... Good Poems by Garrison Keillor, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey through Poems by Caroline Kennedy, and Poems to Learn by Heart by Caroline Kennedy.

But, how do you pick out a book of poetry? You open up one and read a poem or two.. maybe more. To get a feel for the poem and the poet... Does it speak to you? Can you relate to its' subject matter? Do you just like it? 

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE POETRY BOOKS? 

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE POEMS?

Memoir Monday...

Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo... When Marcelo Hernandez Castillo was five years old and his family was preparing to cross the border between Mexico and the United States, he suffered temporary, stress-induced blindness. Castillo regained his vision, but quickly understood that he had to move into a threshold of invisibility before settling in California with his parents and siblings. Thus began a new life of hiding in plain sight and of paying extraordinarily careful attention at all times for fear of being truly seen. Before Castillo was one of the most celebrated poets of a generation, he was a boy who perfected his English in the hopes that he might never seem extraordinary.

With beauty, grace, and honesty, Castillo recounts his and his family’s encounters with a system that treats them as criminals for seeking safe, ordinary lives. He writes of the Sunday afternoon when he opened the door to an ICE officer who had one hand on his holster, of the hours he spent making a fake social security card so that he could work to support his family, of his father’s deportation and the decade that he spent waiting to return to his wife and children only to be denied reentry, and of his mother’s heartbreaking decision to leave her children and grandchildren so that she could be reunited with her estranged husband and retire from a life of hard labor.

Children of the Land distills the trauma of displacement, illuminates the human lives behind the headlines and serves as a stunning meditation on what it means to be a man and a citizen.

When I started to read all the controversy surrounding American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins, I found "alternative" books that were recommended to read instead of that book in order to understand the real experiences of undocumented people entering the US. Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is one of those books. Unlike American Dirt, which is a book of fiction, Children of the Land is a memoir.

Marcelo Hernandez is an awarding winning poet, writer and teacher. He received a B.A. from Sacramento State University and was the first undocumented student to earn an MFA from the University of Michigan. His book Children of the Land, published by Harper, will be available tomorrow at your local bookstore. On my Wishlist.

This is How You Celebrate National Poetry Month...

This is How You Celebrate National Poetry Month!

Throughout the whole month of April we've been celebrating National Poetry Month! We've shared books, poems, videos of poets reading their poems and I even shared about the poetry reading I went to on a friday evening. Just in case you missed any of the posts, I thought it would be a great idea to list all the poetry posts we've done so far this month on Chick with Books...You can click on the post title to take you to the post...

April 1st...   National Poetry Month Starts! What it's all about!

April 1st...   "Poems to First Love" by Matthew Yeager

April 2nd..  Billy Collins reads his poem, "To My Favourite 17 Year Old High-School Girl"

April 3rd...  The Sunday Salon and Poems, Poets and National Poetry Month

April 8th...  Rachel Zucker reads her poem, "Please Alice Notley..."

April 12th... "After The Movie" by Marie Howe

April 14th... "If You Forget Me" by Pablo Neruda

April 17th...  The Sunday Salon and... 3 Reasons Why You Should Go to a Poetry Reading

More Poets, Poems and Poetry Talk Coming All Month Long...

It's National Poem in Your Pocket Day!

April 14th is National Poem in Your Pocket Day!

The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends.

Poems from pockets will be unfolded throughout the day with events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces, and bookstores.

Do you read poetry? Even if poetry isn't something we read on a regular basis, we must all have read a poem, written a love poem, been inspired by the beautiful lines written by a poet. Today is the day to celebrate poetry! In fact, April is National Poetry Month so grab yourself a book of poetry and leisurely enjoy Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson and such contemporaries as Billy Collins and Nikki Giovanni.

So tell me, do you read poetry? What's your favorite poem?