My Tribute to National Poetry Month

Poetry and the creative mind have always shared the same stage words are choreographed to dance and glide smooth across our sensibilities. We embrace wit and dress it up to express deep within the moxie that measures lines of accomplished value. There's something about the ability to give it personal touches and significance. We've all come to love how it permeates our lives when they are timely and timeless. We reach for them when we are in those melancholy moods and need an uplift. American has taken notice and decided to honor them -- to the tune of a whole month to coddle them. Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

I started my writing career writing poetry. I studied the best of them and wondered exactly what it was that spurred the great poets to write as they did. Was it a certain sense of creative spunk that can be called upon at random? What makes a great poet? If you were to ask at the spur of the moment a few dozen people, you would probably get a plethora of different answers. I would imagine that some would say that a great poet are sensitive to their needs, or makes them laugh and cry. Others would say that a poet is only as good as the last great poem he wrote. To me a great poet makes me want to read a poem over and over again, each time seeing something new. I want to see the passion in their selections and compassion for the craft; I want expressionism to jump out and slap me and keep me attentive and captive. I read poetry for many different reasons and find that no one poem is the same. Or is it? What then, makes a good poem? I always look for a standard that bode well for structure and stability, which can make or break poetry for me. And all of my favorite poets through the annals of time had it. Phyllis Wheatley had it; Paul Lawrence Dunbar perfected it; Edgar Allen Poe demanded it; Walt Whitman wore it as a medal of honor; Rita Dove taught it; Maya Angelou defines it and Nikki Giovanni IS it!  That common denominator that all of the above resonates with is -- Style, Substance and Charisma.

The reason I feel that poetry should be depicted as an adjective because it describes my rationality in all things definitive to it.  I've always considered a poem "good" if it is allowed to have longevity and stays with me; when I want to think back on what I read, I want to reminisce knowing that there are words, images, feelings, or ideas that will move me beyond my current state.  "Great" poems are ones that are memorable for reasons closer to the heart -- like Wr. Whitman's OH CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN; Poe's  ANNABELL LEE and THE RAVEN; Nikki's LIKE A RIPPLE ON A POND; or Maya Angelou's ON THE PULSE OF MORNING. It's all about having the caged bird to sing out in a liberated way and vociferously all good with poetic verve. What sets me to flowing is when euphoria is indicative of sheer elation knowing that the poet wrote profoundly and with emotional compassion. So-called good poems, as well as the great ones vibrate with alarm and energy that can't be passive, forgotten or ignored. As I celebrate National Poetry Month, I salute, celebrate the poignancy of poetry, and what it means to the lexicon for the humanities!