P is for Poetry

April is National Poetry Month!

I’ll be honest. Poetry is not my favorite form of writing. I learned the basics in school and dutifully analyzed the poems that we were assigned, but I did not develop an interest in writing or studying poetry beyond that.

I was never fascinated by the likes of Walt Whitman or e.e. cummings. However, as a young, idealistic student, I could appreciate the inspirational words of the political and cultural instigators like Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni, and Gabriela Mistral.

As part of National Poetry Month, today is National Poem in Your Pocket Day! It’s a cute educational initiative that I had never heard of until now. You can find more information here.

After a long winter filled with bad weather and tragic events, I was looking for something positive and hopeful to post. I thought a poem about the emergence of Spring would be appropriate.

For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

From Atalanta in Calydon (1865)

Do you have a favorite poem or poet? Let us know!

(Also? Please Help! I have no post ideas for V, X, or Z, so I’m taking suggestions!)