Despite T.S. Eliot’s immortal words, April is not always the cruelest month (though it can certainly be a meteorologically confusing one!), particularly when it is an entire month devoted to the celebration of poetry. April is National Poetry Month, and in the wake of our posts encouraging the overcoming of metrophobia, I feel it’s only appropriate to celebrate here on the blog. In fact, there is a confluence of events during the month of April that makes it a wonderful month to celebrate poetry. On April 29th, Mass Poetry will have their 8th annual Mass Poetry Festival, throughout that weekend in Salem. The quadricentennial of Shakespeare’s death will happen during this month as well, and just in time, a first folio of his collected plays was discovered in Scotland on the Isle of Bute. Finally there is a call for readers will be happening right here at the Peabody Library on April 16th and 17th, to take part in Homer’s poetic tradition in a marathon tandem reading of the Iliad, which our regular blogger Arabella has already mentioned and about which I am ridiculously excited.

Amidst these very outward celebrations, I think it’s worth mentioning that what is most meaningful in poetry is often a much more quiet, inward journey that is sometimes celebratory and sometimes merely a subtle change that isn’t even noticed until the impact is felt much, much later. Other times, poetry can be a source of bibliotherapy. In a fascinating  and moving article, LitHub published the observations of a poet who prescribes poems to those in need. Yes, you read that right. She believes in poetry as a form of therapy that can be prescribed to those who need it. Ronna Bloom is the Poet in Residence at Mount Sinai Hospital and the Poet in Community at the University of Toronto. She has taken a very boots-on-the-ground approach to bringing poetry to those who may not have considered it otherwise. She realizes that those she encounters (often people who have had life-changing diagnosis) may not want a poem and that some might consider her efforts frivolous and doesn’t push the issue, acknowledging ” My motto: everyone who is alive could use a poem. Whether they want one is a different matter….There are things poetry can do and things is can’t.” However, there are amazing moments in which she truly connects with her “patients” realizing that “the point is less about liking and more about finding the poem that catches the spark of the experience, with empathy.” My humble opinion is that empathy is one of the greatest gifts poetry give and I give Bloom a great deal of credit for not shying away from what many choose to purposefully avoid (in relation to both tragedy and poetry), gently encouraging them to embrace the possibilities of language.

There are certainly other way in which poetry can reach people. LitHub has also published an article on poems that have made writers cry, indicating the transformative power of poetry. And for all of us wonderful bibliophiles, Flavorwire has a list of beautiful poems specifically for people who love books. Clearly, there is a type of poetry for everyone, whether or not we have chosen to find it yet. For my part, one of my transformative poetic experiences was when I was writing a paper in college and had to choose a Shakespeare sonnet for my topic. After paging through lines and lines of love poetry (my sarcastic, single self getting a little nauseous) I finally ended upon a sonnet about unconventional love, one that didn’t uphold the love-object as an idealized, stylized figure. Shakespeare’s dark lady is the polar opposite to pretty much any convention that poets before and after Shakespeare valued, but the Bard understood that love isn’t always dictated by the conventions of beauty and despite what many would have considered flaws that couldn’t be overlooked, he found much to love anyway. This was one of several poems that made me stop and truly appreciate some of what poetry could do and fortunately, because Shakespeare is in the Public Domain, instead of sharing book recommendations this week, I get to share this poem with you.

Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare

Till next week, dear readers, I encourage you to find a poem that you’re able to connect with in some meaningful way. Whatever that meaning, it is entirely personal and doesn’t need to be compared with anyone’s idea of poetry and meaning but your own. Mass Poetry’s website has a delightful section called “Poem of the Moment” that may help you with this. I also encourage any interested readers to join the Peabody Library in celebrating a centuries-old tradition of the oral recitation of poetry, whether by reading or joining us on June 19th in Veteran’s Memorial Park. Perhaps you might even find personal meaning in Homer’s epic.