April: National Poetry Month

To celebrate National Poetry Month, I’ll be including a poem in each of my April posts, starting with one of my favorites, by e.e. cummings:

in Just-
spring        when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles        far       and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan      whistles
far
and
wee

The visual artist in me loves the placement of the words on the page and how the poem takes on new meanings in the way it appears. The writer in me enjoys how cummings creates rhythm and patterns and new meanings by combining words.

Rainboots: Steve Madden

There’s something about poetry that stirs my soul.

It nourishes like a good meal, refreshes like a dip in the lake, and reaches into me and finds emotions I didn’t know I had. Apparently, it drives me to write in similes too!

Whether you know it or not, poems are familiar to all of us. A poem is the lullaby your parents sang to you when you were an infant, the nursery rhymes you recited on the playground, and the songs you sing in your car as you listen to the radio on the way to work.

Do you enjoy poetry? Share your thoughts!