poetry

National Poetry Month Kickoff

Happy National Poetry Month! (Or almost, since it’s just a few days away now.) I’ve always found it so fitting that NPM falls in April, when much of the northern hemisphere is transitioning into spring, our heads filling with poetic thoughts. Everything is new, reborn, fresh! Therefore, my plans to celebrate this month include:

  • much frolicking out of doors
  • enjoying some sunlight at my desk and experimenting with some new-to-me forms of poetry (a series of my blank verse poems have been published here, but there is still much to explore)
  • reading a poetry craft book (on deck: THE CRAFTY POET by Diane Lockward)
  • reading more poetry and verse novels (recent reads include THE PRINCESS SAVES HERSELF IN THIS ONE by Amanda Lovelace, MILK AND HONEY by Rupi Kaur, RONIT & JAMIL by Pam Laskin, and STONE MIRRORS by Jeannine Atkins)
  • peeking at the entries to our YA #FindingHome poetry contest at YARN
  • continue working on my own verse novel projects (yes, they have multiplied and are now plural!)

While I hope many poets out there are writing, reading, and entering our contest at YARN this month, I’m curious how else everyone is celebrating. Any big poetic plans? Please do share!

Verse Novel-a-thon

To celebrate National Poetry Month this year, I decided to turn my reading list into a verse novel-a-thon, and I can happily report that it was an even more amazing experience than I had hoped. What stories! What voices! What magnificent, gorgeous writing!

My signed copy!

As a Rilke scholar and Poetry Editor at YARN, I of course love poetry. I’ve read and loved some fantastic verse novels in the past, among them BROWN GIRL DREAMING by Jacqueline Woodson, THE CROSSOVER by Kwame Alexander, and AND WE STAY by Jenny Hubbard, to name a few.

At YARN this month, we chatted with two verse novelists, Leza Lowitz and Dana Walrath, who also shared some of their beautiful work. Reading their novels definitely inspired me to read more novels in verse, so you can find more about them in my recommended reading list below. This is by no means a complete list! But if you’ve never read a verse novel before, one of these might be a good start.

UP FROM THE SEA by Leza Lowitz is a haunting tale about the devastating 2011 tsunami in Japan told from a teen boy’s perspective.

LIKE WATER ON STONE by Dana Walrath uses multiple points of view to share a family’s heartbreaking journey during the Armenian genocide.

AUDACITY by Melanie Crowder pulls the reader deep in the head of a striking factory worker at the turn of the 20th century with amazingly visceral details.

SKYSCRAPING by Cordelia Jensen is a gorgeous near-historical set in NYC about AIDS, guilt, love, and family.

WITNESS by Karen Hesse is another multi-POV story for middle-grade readers that takes a serious look at the KKK in a small Vermont town in 1924.

MAY B by Caroline Starr Rose is a beautifully-written middle-grade historical that appeals to Little House fans (with a bit of Home Alone mixed in).

CAMINAR by Skila Brown tells the heart-wrenching story of a boy who survives an attack on his village in war-torn Guatemala.

ORCHARDS by Holly Thompson sends the reader on a journey with a teenage girl to her family’s orchard in Japan after a bullied girl in her class kills herself.

A TIME TO DANCE by Padma Venkatraman is a beautiful story about a bharatanatyam dancer’s healing process when she loses her leg in a tragic accident.

VerseNovelsHaving read all these fantastic novels has not dampened my enthusiasm in the slightest for verse, as is probably evident by my current TBR stack. Can’t wait to make my way through these ones next!

Please feel free to add any other must-reads in the comments!