Tomorrow Begins National Poetry Month

I started a tradition a few years ago of honoring National Poetry Month each April. In past years I have posted original poetry, favorite poems, new poems, and anthologies and poets I have grown to love. I can never say enough about how reading, appreciating, and writing poetry helps each of us understand our world in a different way. It creates an opportunity for more concise writing with a focus on the choice and sound of specific words. Poetry brings back memories of a teacher reading a certain verse, standing in front of the room reciting a poem, or wrtiing a love poem to a sweetheart. The words put is in another place, another season, another time. On the eve of this special month I am sharing this favorite of mine by Edna St. Vincent Millay. In a poetry workshop by my friend Marti, she encouraged us to listen for the sounds in poems. Take time to read this aloud. Enjoy!

 

Counting-Out Rhyme

 Silver bark of beech, and sallow

Bark of yellow birch and yellow

Twig of willow.

 

Stripe of green in moosewood maple,

Color seen in leaf of apple,

Bark of popple.

 

Wood of popple pale as moonbeam,

Wood of oak for yoke and barn-beam

Wood of  hornbeam.

 

Silver bark of beech, and hollow

Stem of elder, tall and yellow

Twig of willow.

 

-Edna St. Vincent Millay