NPM: Day 1

National Poetry Month is a month-long frenzy of poetry that I enjoy every year, but also I find it exhausting. I read a lot of poetry all year round, but during NPM there is just so much of it. Creative types are doing amazing projects and my inbox has extra poems in it (I get some daily poems all the time, but more in April). I wish I had time to read everything and marvel over all of it, but I also have to keep working during NPM, and I have a family, and life goes on in all kinds of time-consuming ways.

Some years I have attempted to do a daily post in NPM, and some years not, and this year on the whole I thought not, but then I realized that I have so many open tabs on my desktop that contain poems that I could probably post for two weeks just by sharing those. This would allow me to close the tabs, and also it would allow others to see what I've kept open over the last few months. Sometimes I save something because I just want to read it again, sometimes because I want to write something similar. My husband is endlessly horrified by how many tabs I have open all the time. When I run out of open tabs, I have poems I've saved in email that I can share, and by that time I'll have new tabs open, anyway.

The thing is, I know I'll be mostly talking to myself in these posts. All my poetry-loving friends are just as busy during NPM as I am. If you are stopping by to read, welcome, and leave a comment to let me know you've been here.

Today I'm going to start with some song lyrics by Andrew Peterson. I know my life would be much poorer without the poets, the ones I know personally and the ones I just know from their words. As usual, Andrew Peterson expresses well how I feel.


To All the Poets
by Andrew Peterson

To all the poets I have known
Who saw the beauty in the commonplace
Saw incarnation in a baby's face
And in a drop of rain the stars
When there was mud and blood and tears
You sang a song at night to calm our fears
You made a moment last a thousand years
You are the poets I have known

To all the poets I have known
You built a kingdom out of sea and sand
You conquered armies with a marching band
You carved a galaxy in stone
You built an altar out of bread
And spent your soul to see the children fed
You wove your heart in every story read
Thank God for poets I have known

And you keep on dreamin'
When the dreams all fade
When friends desert me
You're the ones who stay
To write the prayers when every prayer had been prayed
You are the poets I have known

You turned your tears into a string of pearls
You held your sorrow high to light the world
When I thought I was alone
In every man you saw the boy
The hidden heart the dark could not destroy
Slipped past the dragons with a tale of joy
Thank God for poets I have known

'Cause you keep on dreamin'
When the dreams all fade
When friends desert me
You're the ones who stay
To write the prayers when every prayer had been prayed

You walking wounded of my life
Who bled compassion in the heat of strife
You stood between my heart and Satan's knife
With just the armor of a song
You are the heroes and the brave
Who with a slender pen our passions save
And chisel epitaphs upon the graves
Of all the poets I have known

So keep on dreamin'
Keep on dreamin'
So keep on dreamin'
Keep on dreamin'
Keep on dreamin'

Some other goodies for today: Jama has rounded up some of the incredibly creative things people are doing for NPM this year. There are teaching tips and poem-a-day projects and videos and it's all amazing. I am so impressed by everybody and happy they let me hang out with them.

And today you can read the first line of this year's Progressive Poem here at Matt Forrest Esenwine's blog. He's encouraging us to try found lines this year. Hmm. We shall see what develops. Meanwhile, I like how he's started things out.

I posted the whole schedule yesterday; you can see it here. My line is coming up on the 7th.