From the nursery rhymes learned as a child,
To poems crafted by Frost, Keats or Wilde,
Poetry enriches our lives.
Poems teach us language.
They help us remember.
They tickle our senses
With rhythm and wonder.
Some may be short,
Like your favorite haikus.
Others are epic,
Take time to peruse.
Some poems are free verse,
No meter, no rhyme.
While others are structured
And rhyme every time.
Poems are easy to find,
If only you look.
Just come to The Library
And check out a book.
As you can see, I began this blog with a short poem that I wrote about poetry. I thought that a poem would be a fitting way to promote National Poetry Month this year.
National Poetry Month was launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets as an effort to remind the public about the integral role that poetry plays in our culture. It is celebrated each April. To support their effort, the Academy of American Poets has been providing free educational resources to classroom teachers, librarians, and readers. Visit National Poetry Month | Academy of American Poets to learn more.
One motivating factor for promoting National Poetry Month each year is to increase the public’s access to poets and poetry. Libraries are leaders in doing this. They provide collections that are varied, wide, and free to borrow. I encourage you to explore The Library’s catalog to see what our collection has to offer. A simple keyword search using the term “poetry” will yield over 2700 results.
Here are a few examples:
(For details about any of these books, just click on the book cover image. The catalog record will display.)
In addition to the circulating titles, The Library provides access to a selection of poetry-related reference books, e-Books, and databases. These include:
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Poetry for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context and Criticism on Commonly Studied Poetry – This 18-volume set of volumes in our reference collection provides information and literary criticism on many of the poems and poets that students study in school.
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LitfFnder -Need help finding a poem about a specific topic? Then explore Gale’s LitFinder. LitFinder is a searchable database that can be accessed online through Power Library. LitFinder contains more than 130,000 full-text poems and nearly 650,000 poetry citations. (To use this free resource when outside of a library, just enter your library card number and PIN where prompted.)
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EBSCO eBooks – Download some poetry-themed eBooks from EBSCO eBooks. To find these, click on the EBSCO eBooks link on our eBooks page at https://www.dcls.org/ebooks . Select this resource, enter your library card number and PIN, search for “Poetry”, and browse the results.
While The Library’s poetry resources are vast, even more can be found online. Here are two websites that are especially useful to teachers:
https://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/1872-the-big-giant-list-of-poetry-resources
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/resources
I find that online rhyming dictionaries and thesauruses can be incredibly helpful when writing poetry. Here are few that I like to use:
I invite you to join us in celebrating National Poetry Month. Take some time to read a few poems from some unfamiliar poets, or try your hand at creating some poems of your very own. Enjoy adding some rhythm and rhyme to your life this April.