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On the Bookcase | ||||||||
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April is Poetry Month! Go outside the box one month and do something daring! Have your reading group select some poetry for one of your meetings. For a fun and interesting meeting, have each member recite or read their favorite poem. Whether members pick Dr. Seuss or John Milton -- you will learn something new about your members. Invite the Poet Laureate of your State to come and speak with your group. Invite a local poet to your meeting or gather your members for a field trip to go listen a poetry reading. Read some poetry of different National Poet Laureates – maybe narrow the discussion to some of the women national poet laureates. Be creative and maybe it will open some doors for those who don’t like or understand poetry. The Academy of American Poets and its website www.poets.org have plenty of things to help poetry come alive. Life Lines Everyone carries lines of poetry with us. Words that others have written float back to us and stay with us, indelibly. We clutch these "Life Lines" like totems, repeat them as mantras, and summon them for comfort and laughter. Begun in National Poetry Month 2006, the Life Lines project has been extended thanks to the continued interest and unprecedented participation of the community of readers and writers. The Academy would like to know what poet’s words remain with you, along with a paragraph detailing a moment when they arose and the insight, instruction, delight, or solace they provided. Please visit www.poets.org to see how to submit your Life Lines. Poem-A-Day Poets.org will send one new poem to your inbox each day to celebrate National Poetry Month. The poems have been selected from new books published this spring. Poetry & The Creative Mind Poetry & The Creative Mind on April 11 at the Lincoln Center features leading artists, actors, musicians, and public figures reading their favorite poems. This year, their special guest readers include Lauren Bacall, William F. Baker, Glenn Close, David Halberstam, Ethan Hawke, Jules Feiffer, Simon Schama, John Simon, Wendy Whelan, Dianne Wiest, Patrick Wilson, Alfre Woodard, and others.
Poetry & The Creative Mind raises critical funds for National Poetry Month, one of the Academy’s signature arts-education programs. With this support, the Academy is able to provide free classroom materials to more than 200,000 schools during National Poetry Month. The funds raised last year allowed the Academy to donate one book of poetry to every middle-school classroom and library in New York City, plus thousands more to schools and libraries in New Orleans and other cities across the country. Have a poetic month and thanks for keeping the joy of reading and poetry alive, Barbara |
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