Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits. – Carl Sandburg

April is National Poetry Month. I love to write about poetry. From celebrating the craft of Poet Laureates, to mining the riches of new poets’ work, to collecting Presidential Inaugural poems, to exploring the cracks and crevasses of my favorite poets’ verse, poetry has been root and bud, figure and ground, breath and imagination, blood and tears, grace and precision, hyacinth and biscuit. Dipping my toe into the poetry writing waters in MONDAYS ARE FREE exercises has given me new love and admiration for poets.

Poems are everyday prayers. Let me explain. Paying attention can be painful. Our days can be beautiful and hard. Remembering to breathe can be too much. Poetry makes space for it all to be observed and held. Poet Ruth Forman writes about wearing prayers like shoes. Poems are my shoes. They are my as if, my I am, and my not yet. They are the generative force creating, building, remembering, connecting, and loving. 

I celebrate poetry this month and beyond. I celebrate falling asleep hearing Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 1,000 times as a child. I celebrate discovering Gwendolyn Brooks, Natasha Trethewey, Mary Oliver, Joy Harjo, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Ada Limón … I celebrate all fearless, beautiful, heartbreaking poems and their poets. I celebrate the way poems explore the contours of language, leaving me breathless and amazed. I celebrate gentle punctuation in a world of cruel syntax. I celebrate the warmth of metaphor and simile in a cold literal world. I celebrate pause amidst hurry. I celebrate quiet amidst noise. I celebrate spice amidst bland. I celebrate the crawl and the soar. I celebrate the wound and the tear. I celebrate the lighthouse and the cave. I celebrate the beginning and the end.