The Read Room does National Poetry Month

Last year I slipped poems into books at my favorite bookshop.

Friends, writers, poets and non-poets, lovers of words: April is National Poetry Month!

As someone who didn’t discover the power of poetry until college and a novelist who can never make as much time for poetry as she would like, I am devoting the month of April to celebrating poetry here at The Read Room. I will do this by observing a different practice each week– some of which I will be looking for other bloggers to coordinate with! Warning: the next 30 days will be creative. Side effects may include fun and attraction to poetry!

Here are my plans for National Poetry Month:

1. Week One (April 1-7): Reading. Just as my poetry courses in university began, I will start off by reading. Poems are short. They go by quickly. I will be reading 10 poems a day out of various anthologies and posting my favorites here, as well as highlighting what I like and what, in terms of technique, makes it good poetry. If you have never been a poetry reader, I recommend this reading practice for you, too– 10 a day is very manageable and will expose you to much quickly.
2. Week Two (April 8-14): Artistic Transcriptions. I loved what I did last year to celebrate NaPoMo so much that I’m going to do it again. In this week I will transcribe (copy down) one poem a day, by hand, and play around with artistic rendering: adding illustrations, collage, paint, dried flowers, etc. At the end of the month I will visit my favorite bookshop and deposit these into random books for strangers to find. Not before scanning them and sharing them here, of course! 🙂
3. Week Three (April 15-21): Blackout Poetry. A blackout poem is written by erasure. You start with an existing text (a newspaper article, a movie review, a gossip column, anything) and do the following: 1) circle words you like 2) add/cross out words you like until they read, from start to finish, like a sentence or coherent phrase(s) 3) “black out” the rest of the text by coloring over it with a marker. Or paint. Or nail polish. This is The Read Room. We favor creativity. And I will be writing and uploading one blackout poem a day in this week.
4. Week Four (April 22-28): Interactive Poetry with Other Bloggers/Twitterers. I’m going to have to work out the details of this and I’ll set it up in advance, but what I’m thinking is that I’ll provide a different prompt each day and those interested in playing (writing) can do so by leaving their line in the comments or in a Twitter conversation.

And those are my plans! How are YOU observing NaPoMo– and do you have any interest in writing poetry with other bloggers the week of April 22? Let us know! 🙂