National Poetry Month

Inspired by Black History month, The Academy of American Poets  worked with a variety of interested parties including teachers, publishers, booksellers, librarians, and of course poets to figure out the many ways poetry could be celebrated.  They concluded April was a great month for the celebration, and on April 1, 1996, President Bill Clinton proclaimed April to be National Poetry Month. 

 

Following the Academy’s lead, Writers’ Morning Out has posted a poem-a-day during April since WMO’s inception in 2010.

“Compost” by Janet Ford

 

Black gold, my mother called it,
lifting a fistful,
letting it crumble
from a gloved hand;
apple skins, parings
lapsed cabbage
turned like rags
to the riches of land.
Everything living
will live again.

 

Water was standing
in the garden after rain
and she slogged across
in her loose galoshes
to rake another bucket
through the steaming heap
and shake a blanket
over the potato bed.
What seems dead
may be asleep;

 

it’s hard to tell
the beginning from the end
like today on Main,
a plate glass window caught the sun
and there she was
in all her revenance,
walking toward me
in her old brown coat.
She spoke and I felt the words
catch in my throat.

 

 

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