April is National Poetry Month

Since 1996 National Poetry Month has been celebrated each April. To help you celebrate here are some poetry resoures and upcoming events:

• For the past 10 years, Knopf has sent out a free poem from one of its distinguished poets each day during the month of April in celebration of poetry month. Visit the Knopf Doubleday Poem-a-Day website to learn more about the poems and poets and to sign up for this year’s poem-a-day email. There's also a video.
• Choose a poem to carry with you on April 14th which is Poem In Your Pocket Day. If you don't know which poem to choose, consider the selection of work from NH poets that was featured as part of the NH Center for the Book's 2009 National Poetry Month Celebration.
• Scholastic Books has a variety of resources on their website to help bring poetry to the children in your life including audiofiles of Jack Prelutsky, the nation’s first Children’s Poet Laureate leading students through writing and publishing their own original poem.
• The Poetry Foundation has lots of info about poetry as well as a searchable collection of online poems and audiocasts of lectures and poetry readings.
• The Library of Congress's Poetry Page includes information about the poets (including several from NH) who have served as U.S. Poet Laureate as well as links to the many poetry projects and activities LC is involved in.
• Walter Butts, the current NH Poet Laureate hosts a showcase of NH poets on the NH Arts website.
• The Portsmouth Poet Laureate Program will announce the next laureate on April 18. They are holding a Poetry Hoot on April 6.
• The Frost Farm’s Hyla Brook Poets celebrate with a reading by New York City poet Stephen Paul Miller on Thursday, April 14, 2011 6:30-8:30pm at BeanTowne Coffee House & Café, 201 Rte 111 in Hampstead, NH. Also reading is Hyla Brook Poet Kyle Potvin. The Reading Series is free and open to the public.
• On April 20th beginning at 7pm  RiverRun Bookstore will host poets Baron Wormser and Meg Kearney reading from their newest books.
• On April 4th at 7pm the bookgroup at Gibson's will discuss T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. 
• The Poetry Society of NH will have their monthly meeting to celebrate and hone their craft at Gibson's on April 20th at 7pm. April's headliners are Jeff Friedman and Matt Jasper. Their readings will be followed by an open mike event, led by Don Kimball.

However you do it, April is a great time to celebrate poetry!