You’ve got to laugh, right? That the first day of National Poetry Month is April Fool’s Day! The foolishness of waking early, pouring coffee, and sitting down to write. But before I could sit down this morning, I had to unearth the food coloring so that I could make some blue Bantha Milk for the Star Wars fans who live at my house!

I’ve got some plans for this month. Writing and reading poems is nothing new though, so I’m adding a few extras to sweeten the month. Because really, where you find sweetness is where you’ll find the poems.

I’ll be meeting the morning with prompts from the 30 Day Haiku Challenge hosted by The Wild Words. Haiku is accessible enough and the prompts are expansive enough that there’s really no reason not to join in! I have been writing poems about Penelope and Demeter. So I will be writing the morning haiku from their perspective.

I’m also going to post a few poetry oracle poems in the Stories on my Instagram. Those are the cards above. They’ve got lines from Basho via Robert Hass on one side. Flip over three…or sometimes four…and you’ve got a poem! It works because the source material is so rich!

Tania Runyan is leading a reading and writing book group through The Great Gatsby. I read the novel as a high school senior, but haven’t returned since. I am utterly intrigued by Tania’s assertion that “writing poetry as we read will help us better understand the novel and reading the novel as we write will help us create inspired poems.” I don’t know quite what to expect, but this could prove a rich vein.

On April 13th Irene Latham is coming to Read-Aloud Revival to teach a workshop on writing nonets based on her lovely book Nine: A Book of Nonet Poems! It’s the generative kind of book–you finish reading and immediately head to the page. I can’t wait to spend time with Irene! You can sign up just for the month–it’s a full one with art and stories!

And I’ll be visiting with Poetry Friday peeps because they are some of the most careful readers + writers around!

How are you celebrating this month?

Here’s a great collection of posts from the archives about celebrating Poetry Every Day if you need some inspiration!