Saturday, April 01, 2006

COUNT THE WAYS

National Poetry Month starts today and I'm thinking of ways to celebrate:

Write a poem a day.
I think this goal may be more do-able for me than writing for a certain amount of time and/or journaling. When I journal, I freeze up, if I sit down with the intention of writing a poem I feel more at ease. Wonder why?

Attend the NC Festival of the Book.
At Duke and throughout Durham, April 26-30 - I love my new state. Think about it - a festival of the book. It's like a poet's dream come true . . .

Read, read, read.

I am back into freebie books - the library - currently I'm reading the Beat Book and listening to Junie B. Jones on tape. Nice mom/poet balance, huh? My small, local library actually has a decent poetry section compared to most bookstores, and an excellent children's section.

Podcast Poetry - how positively hip!
Michelle e o is spinning audio poems with music as a PJ (podcast jockey) for The Goodnight Show: Miporadio's Top Ten Countdown. My favorite poem in this week's top ten is Mairead Byrne's poem titled Religious Poem, With Holes.

Share the love.

This is easy for me. I am, after all, a third-grade teacher, and I plan to read poetry during our daily read aloud time, and also invite the kids to bring in their favorite poems and read as well.

Let's collect more ideas for ways to celebrate and post them in the comments.

6 Comments:

Blogger Michelle M. Buchanan said...

Great ideas JB, thanks for the plug on the show too. Some awesome poetry out there huh?

3:53 PM, April 01, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You could put copies of favorite poems in random places - public bulletin boards, walls in bathrooms, the subway. I like thinking someone might read a poem for the first time, become curious, want to know more ... just feel touched in some way.

7:40 PM, April 02, 2006  
Blogger J.B. Rowell said...

Yes Michelle - thanks for finding it for us!

Some great ideas Anon. - I like the idea of random acts of poetry.

5:13 PM, April 03, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm celebrating by posting a poem. I follow you blog; I love it. Here's my crack at poetry.

Evil War

In one year
over 100 have died from
bee stings.
That's not counting the bees
or the heart attacks that followed.

In one year
42,636 have died from
car accidents.
Killing a person
with a car is illegal.

570,280 died from cancer
last year,
including Anne Bancroft
--a feminists--
and Peter Jennings
--a liberal.
Scientists seem to
think this is an
acceptable way to
cure it.

It's different of course,
we didn't create cancer--
like tyranny, it naturally
occurred

But still I can think of
1,000 other possible cures
they didn't try first,
while people wait,
dying by the hundreds
of thousands.

2:50 PM, April 06, 2006  
Blogger Amy said...

Yes, you're right, we should celebrate poetry. One thing we can do is subscribe to one new small-circulation poetry mag, one we really like.They need the support.

The best thing to do, I think, is read poetry. Many poets hardly read what's out there.

2:54 PM, April 06, 2006  
Blogger J.B. Rowell said...

Thanks anon. ~ good write ~ keep going and maybe someday we'll get introduced?

And Amy ~ so glad you're back ~ you're right about READING poetry ~ and especially supporting poetry by subscribing (and buying). Thanks

10:09 AM, April 08, 2006  

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