April is Poetry Appreciation Month

Every human being is a poet whether or not we write down our thoughts, whether or not anyone else cares. 

Anyone can hear poetry in the cry “I just washed that floor!” 

 

A child stomping out of the house in rage at his siblings, “Tell them they can forget about me.” 

 

A dementia patient gazing in awe at towering cedars, “The sky is certainly full of clouds low and legal. So many tall trees. The trees are so tall.”

 

“How long did it take God to think up stars?”

Dylan Thomas recognized the difficulties inherent in human relationships:

 That though I loved them for their faults

 As much as for their good,
 My friends were enemies on stilts
 With their heads in a cunning cloud.

Here are a few universal Lawrence Ferlinghetti titillating tidbits from his tiny book, Poetry As Insurgent Art:

Look for the permanent in the evanescent and fleeting.

Be a canary in the coal mine. (A dead canary is not just an ornithological problem.)

Poetry is the earth turning and turning, with its humans everyday turning into light or darkness.

Be a poet this week and sing yourself a song of living celebration.