Poetry Month Event

Poets' Line Up: Matt Rasmussen, Rebecca Ramsden, Bruce Peck, Satish Jayaraj, Anne Sawyer-Aitch, Ted Hovey, 

Susan Hermse Schaefer, Roslye Ultan

Thrilled to participate in this morning’s poetry reading at Amplatz Children Hospital, sponsored by Cracked Walnut Literary Festival to celebrate National Poetry Month. 

Full house including kids at back

The lobby at Amplatz filled to capacity early on, and the appreciative audience listened as Anne Sawyer-Aitch kicked off the morning with a dramatic rendition of her children’s book, Nalah and the Pink Tiger, wowing the crowd. 

Bruce Peck

Next in line, Bruce Peck kept spirits high with his style and humor. 

The Adventures of Yin & Yang: Snoepje and the Pizza Box

I followed with a selection of seven poems, including the crowd pleaser, "The Purr of a Cat", from my book, The Adventures of Yin & Yang: Snoepje and the Pizza Box.  

"The purr of cat is stronger than potions, older than history, deeper than oceans; it lowers blood pressure and makes your heart sing, the purr of a cat is a mystical thing. It cures and it calms, it heals like a balm, and all that’s required ‘tis a stroke of your palm. 

A cat on your lap is equal to heaven, imagine then having three… six… or seven!

The purr of a cat, is really an Om, the purr of cat makes each house a home."

Satish Jayaraj, who organized the event, told a wonderful tale of dragons and tears, one of his original stories. Ted Hovey, Rebecca Ramsden and Roslye Ultan presented an engaging mix of prose and poetry from the heart.

Matt Rasmussen, with daughter, and organizers, Rebecca Ramsden and Satish Jayaraj

MN Book Award for Poetry Winner, Matt Rasmussen

My Loft Literary Center poetry teacher, Matt Rasmussen, winner of this year’s Minnesota Book Award for Poetry, closed the reading with a few selections from his award-winning book, Black Aperture, and a newer selection. 

Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April, when schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets throughout the United States band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

April is National Poetry Month

©2008 Susan Schaefer

Ode To April

Trickster month

begins with

a fool’s day,

ends with

the greatest passion play

of a cross on Calvary

or

the parting of the Red Sea.

Cruelest month?

when buds and babes

push up and out

and rain falls,

and breezes beckon,

and renewal calls.

Here,

in the Northern Hemisphere,

April brings

the hope of spring.

- © 2011 Susan Schaefer

National Poetry Month

Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now held every April. It is a time when publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools and poets around the country band together to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture. Thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations participate through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.

Our neighbors in Miami-Dade country are going all out this April with their O, Miami poetry festival. O, Miami is a countywide, month-long series of events and projects with the simple goal of every person in Miami-Dade County finding a poem. Mixing traditional readings with innovative poetry-in-public-places projects, the festival will weave poetry into the fabric of the city’s existing infrastructure and cultural life. Events will be conducted in multiple languages, sometimes simultaneously, often in collaboration with other cultural organizations. O, Miami culminates in a four-day series of readings from April 27-30, 2011 at the Frank Gehry-designed New World Symphony Hall on Miami Beach.

Of all things said about writers, perhaps the single greatest compliment would be that: “she or he writes like a poet.” Why? Because there is simply no other written form that is based chiefly upon the economy of language that distinguishes good from great writing. The language of a poem should be like an energy saving appliance: good for the ‘written’ environment.

Of course, there are plenty of bad poets and poems, but by its essential nature, a poem should be tightly constructed, using few but well chosen words to convey a powerful feeling or moment in time. A great poem should transport the reader to experience an intense or pleasurable emotion, like great music does, or being in love, or the sight of a lovely flower unfolding.

Many of us naturally assume that a poem must rhyme simply because from childhood we have been entertained with rhymed verse. Think of Mother Goose rhymes, like the childhood classic: “Jack and Jill went up the hill….” This type of poem is called “closed: it is subject to a fixed structure and pattern.” However, legitimate poetry can be “free verse, with no prescribed pattern or structure.”

Please take a minute to read a favorite poem. Try reading it aloud. Share it with a child, a friend, or an elder who might enjoy being read to. Attend a reading or buy a volume of poems. In these days of daunting economics and news, what could be better than simply messing about with a written verse?