National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry month!  Hooray!  I was a bit lax about celebrating last year, so this year I decided to make a concentrated effort to incorporate more poetry in my daily life during April, and I have really been enjoying it.

Here are some of the extra things I have been doing:

• I subscribed to the Poem of the Day at poets.org.  I’m not a fan of things landing in my email inbox usually, but I have been reading these poems and enjoying them.  I even saved my favorites.
• I have been reading juvenile fiction novels written in free verse.  I always enjoy this style of writing, and I decided to concentrate on it a bit this month.  Mr. TOF and I read Little Cat’s Luck and Little Dog Lost by Marion Dane Bauer.  He loved these tales, and I had had never heard of them before I saw them on a booklist on a different blog.  (I’m a cat person, and I did indeed like the cat book better than the dog book).  I also came across a copy of Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse at an independent bookstore a few weeks ago.  Hesse always writes beautiful literature, and I loved this glimpse at Aleut life during World War II.  It was a very unique book.
• I bought two new poetry books:  A Marriage Book:   Poems by James P. Lenfestey, and Now Here Crystal Spring Gibbons, and I am loving them both!  Lenfestey’s poems are hands down my favorite poems that I have read this year.
• I am embarking on a special poetry writing project that I can’t say all that much about because I plan on gifting it away, but I can say that I am having a lot of fun writing poetry this month as well as reading it.
• This week I have special plans for “Poem in your Pocket” day.