It's National Poetry Month!

Many people run from poetry. They think it’s boring or difficult to read. While many poems can be complex, others are simple, beautifully simple. April is National Poetry Month. It was first introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. It’s website, www.poets.org, has a wealth of information about local poetry events during National Poetry Month and provides free educational resources to teachers for classroom celebrations and activities. For National Poetry Month, I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite poets and a few of my favorites of their work.

First, Robert Burns (1759-1796) is the national poet of Scotland and one of the pioneers of the Romantic Movement. He collected and translated many Scot folk songs. Many of us know his poem, Auld Lang Syne, which is sung every New Year’s. He wrote in Scots language as well as English and a light Scots dialect. One of my favorites is his poem, To a Mouse (1785), originally written in Scots language and which we get the line “The best laid schemes of mice and men/Go often askew.” According to a legend, Burns was inspired to write the poem when he accidently discovered a mouse’s nest while ploughing his field. And according to Burns’ brother, Burns wrote the poem with his hand still on the plough (Greenblatt, 2002). It is a line which has influenced many authors, for example, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1937) and Sidney Sheldon’s The Best Laid Plans (1997). Singer and songwriter, Bob Dylan once cited Burns’ poem A Red, Red, Rose (1794) as the source of his greatest creative inspiration (Simpson, 2009).

Second, Robert Frost (1874-1963) is a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, a Congressional of Medal recipient (1960) and the poet laureate of Vermont (1961). One of my favorite poems is Mending Wall (1914), a complex poem with several themes including the distances and tensions between men. The poem contains many contradictions about life and humanity. For example, the role of boundaries in society that both separate and join as man makes and breaks those boundaries. The most famous line from this poem is “He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors” which is a proverb that appears in difference cultures in various forms. Another favorite poem of mine is The Road Not Taken (1916) which is about a divergence of paths both literal and figurative. It is one of his most famous and misunderstood poems. Most people think it is about following your own path; however, Lawrance Thompson, a Robert Frost biographer, suggested that the narrator is one “who habitually wastes energy in regretting any choice made: belatedly but wistfully he sighs over the attractive alternative rejected” (Thompson, 1959).  It has been said that this poem was based on his friend, Edward Thomas, who in Frost’s own words, “whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn’t go the other” (eNotes.com).

Lastly, Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) is best known for being a relative recluse for most of her life at her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts. She was a prolific writer, corresponding with numerous friends and writing an approximately 1,800 poems. Most of her poems were discovered after her death. Her poems were unique for her time as she wrote in short lines, typically lacking titles and often used slant rhyme.  Slant rhyme is rhyme in which either the vowels or the consonants of stressed syllables are identical, as in eyes, light; years, yours. Many of her poems deal with the themes of death and immorality. One of my favorite poems is Hope is the thing with feathers which contains the imagery of hope living inside the soul and never stops singing despite the cold. “Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul, /And sings the tune without the words, /And never stops at all.” Another favorite of mine is If I should die which contains the imagery of the peacefulness and natural aspect of life and death. The circle of life and how life continues when we’re gone. “If I should die, /And you should live, /And time should gurgle on.”

In conclusion, poetry is a beautiful artform which can be appreciated by all. From the very complicated to the simple, poetry speaks to everyone. It is not just for the intellectual or the educated. It can be used to encourage, to inspire, and to be a call for change. Poetry uses unique language with sounds to convey images and messages. It is about what we experience in life and what we observe. I highly recommend checking out different poems and poets. You may be surprised to find one who speaks with imagery you enjoy, and which inspires your heart and soul.

References

eNotes.com "The Road Not Taken.” www.enotes.com/topics/road-not-taken/in-depth. Retrieved March 25, 2019.

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. 2012. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W.W. Norton. Print.

Simpson, R (5 October 2009). Bob Dylan names Scottish Poet Robert Burns as his biggest inspiration. London: Daily Mail. www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1069069/Bob-Dylan-names-Scottish-poet-Robert-Burns-biggest-inspiration.html. Retrieved March 25, 2019.

Thompson, L (1959). Robert Frost. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Retrieved March 25, 2019.