Poetry: It gave you rhyming power to tease each other on the playground, helped you express all that teenage angst, and, if you were a guy without a guitar, probably got you laid in college. Now it’s time to give something back, to rehearse, feed the culture with sonnet and verse. Why? Because April is National Poetry Month, a great reason to celebrate the shiny pebbles and itchy grit we rip from our souls and lay out on paper.
Even if you’re not a writer, you probably know a few poems, perhaps some Frost or Kilmer caught in the cobwebs of your brain during your school years, or a rather catchy, well-worn limerick involving a young lady and the destination of Nantucket. But the poetic world is so much larger, and April is a perfect time to explore. The official website at poets.org is chock-full of great ideas, or you can go off on your own to discover the quiet, meaningful words of Basho, the visceral punch of Amiri Baraka, or the quirky wit of T.S. Eliot.
If you do feel inspired, take on the daily poetry challenge at Writer Digest’s Poetic Asides blog, or join NaPoWriMo on the Poets.org forums. And check back here frequently, because I've succumbed to a spell of overgeekiness, and have several posts lined up on how to incorporate poetry into your freelance world, for both fun and profit.
