National Poetry Month - April

National Poetry Month arrives April 1st.

I'll be celebrating by composing a sherku each day. Check back often to see what I have written.

Or subscribe and they'll be delivered to you via email or your favorite RSS Reader!

Text Flows

Poets.org has partnered with TextTelevision to offer TextFlows, an alternative approach to reading and experiencing poetry. By converting text dynamically into Flash animation, poems are revealed phrase by phrase through motion and light, and at a pace controlled by the reader. The simplified words and crisp motion fixes one's attention on the subtleties of language, increasing involvement, engagement, and understanding.

Robert Frost's Mending Wall is here.

A goodly selection of other poems can be found here.

Something there is about just the text

black on white

scrolling slowly enough to read

the poets voice comes forth silently

you hope for no interruptions

until it finishes

thistle seed

Turkey feathers by the curb
Blackbirds in chorus
Thistle seed is going fast

What is a sherku?

focused finish

Run, run, running rapid
Face focused to finish
Slipping by sunny shadows

What is a sherku?

Free Verse: Poetry in the Wild

From an email received this week:

Free Verse: Poetry in the Wild

Call for Submissions: Poetry and Photo Project

Inspired by the 2009 National Poetry Month Poster which features lines by T. S. Eliot written in a fogged window, the Academy of American Poets invites you to capture and share verse in ephemeral ways.

Recreate a favorite poem off the page and contribute it to the Free Verse project. Write lines on a sandy beach, assemble twigs on a hillside, or chalk the sidewalk. Take a photo before it disappears and post it in the Free Verse group page on Flickr, on the Academy's Fan Page on Facebook, or email your photo to freeverse@poets.org. Include the source of your lines in the photo caption.

All photos posted by April 15 will be automatically entered to win the new Poem in Your Pocket anthology and a commemorative piece of jewelry by San Francisco designer Jeanine Payer, who specializes in hand-engraving lines of poetry on earrings, necklaces, and other items. Selected entries will also be featured on Poets.org.

This has been relatively quiet but with April around the corner, should be getting busier. I plan on writing a daily sherku in April.