Set aside poetry time

Here are a few more ideas about exploring poetry. I don’t know about you, but I’m great at wasting time–sometimes, I will spend as much time looking through Netflix as I will actually be watching something. One great way to make poetry a part of your day-to-day life is to set aside ten or fifteen minutes every day where you are dedicated to reading poetry in some form. Choose a usually low-key part of your day (in the morning before you start your day, right after dinner, before you watch a show, etc.) and figure out what makes those fifteen minutes feel great–for me, it’s a cup of tea and a soft blanket.

Follow your favorites

If you’re finding it difficult to find new poetry that you enjoy, a great place to start is with poets, publishers, or magazines you already love: maybe they have Twitter and they tweet about what they’re reading, or maybe they’ve shared a list of their favorite writers. This can be a great jumping off point for finding new favorites! If all else fails, in literary magazines you can read the bios of the poets you enjoy–writers will usually list a few other places they’ve been published, and that can lead you to new and exciting literary magazines, often with similar tastes and styles!

Don’t be afraid of the bandwagon

Poetry seems to be getting more and more popular in mainstream culture outlets like Buzzfeed, Bustle, and others, which is making great contemporary poetry easier to find than ever! A simple Google search will yield tons of roundups for underrated contemporary poets, must-read feminist poets, can’t-miss poetry collections by writers of colour, and other great roundups featuring a diverse and exciting array of amazing poetry! Combine this with your local library or indie bookstore, and you’ll never have a shortage of material, in April or otherwise.

National Poetry Writing Month unofficially challenges writers to compose a poem a day throughout April to celebrate NPM. You can also sometimes find this challenge called 30 Days of Poetry. Many writers fall into the challenge free-form, writing about anything and everything, but others find or create guides to get them through the month: on April 1, write a poem about your childhood; on April 2, write a poem about….

Poem in Your Pocket Day is an annual initiative organized by the Academy of American Poets to celebrate National Poetry Month. The League is very excited to be have joined this initiative for the first time in 2016, adding some of our favorite Canadian poems and poets to the mix! Poem in Your Pocket Day 2018 will be held on Thursday, April 26. 

Usually discoverable on social media under the hashtag #todayspoem, this initiative encourages users to share a poem—original or not—every day throughout April. You can find some readers and writers using the hashtag year-round, but its popularity surges in NPM and it’s a great way to discover new poets and performers through social media.

Reading challenge

Individuals or groups can use NPM as an opportunity to set a poetry reading challenge for the month—or for more than just April! Set the challenge in a way that suits your lifestyle and will be a fun way to fit more poetry into your life. Whether it’s challenging yourself to discover and read one new book of poetry in April, or whether you want to read two books a week, a reading challenge will take your poetry consumption to the next level.

National Poetry Month aims to celebrate poetry in all its forms: if you usually like to read formal poetry, try checking out something different like a novel in verse, or poetry that challenges and subverts forms; if you have only ever loved poetry in book form, try checking out a spoken word showcase or a poetry slam; if you’re a performance poet to your core, try diving into a chapbook and seeing the poetry light up those hand-sewn pages.

And if you don’t do poetry? What better time to start than now? The internet is full of incredible lists of recommendations for every non-poetry-lover: feminist poetry, spoken word poetry, emerging poets, political poets, and more. Poetry isn’t dead. There’s a poem just for you, and we know someone wants to help you find it.

Another poem, this time by Yeats from 1927, written when he was in his early sixties. It is about asking the sages of Byzantium to teach him the acceptance of old age.

A few years later, Yeats wrote about this poem in a radio script: "I am trying to write about the state of my soul, for it is right for an old man to make his soul and some of my thoughts about that subject I have put into a poem called Sailing to Byzantium."

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enamelling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

My thanks to Ronnie at "Time goes By" for the poem.