As I strive to become a better listener and to connect more with my
sense of hearing, National Poetry Month 2026 finds me writing daily,
handwritten, index card poems inspired by sounds and listening.. I have begun a new
notebook to collect the sounds I notice throughout the month, and I will
reflect on them in short poems. My ears - and my heart - are open wide.
I invite you to join me in this project, on any of my projects from the past 16 years,
or on a project of your very own. To do so, simply write a
poem each day of April in any way you wish. Share or don't share, as
you wish. Your poems are your poems. Your projects are your projects.
And if you wish learn a bit more about writing poetry, I welcome you to
the short lessons in the tab above: COAXING POEMS VIDEOS - 2024.
National Poetry Month 2026 Poems
Here is poem 12 -
Students - Here in Western New York, our spring fluctuates between very warm days and very cold days. I do my best to find the good in all of it, and one of my favorite winter moments from childhood when heat blew from a register under the kitchen sink to now when we split our heat between a wood stove and heater in our living room (the heat floates upstairs through holes in the ceilings) is warming my feet by the heat.
Writing this poem, I most enjoyed making the heater hum and breathe...just as people hum and breathe. In poetry-land, we call this personification, the giving of human qualities to non-human things.
You might wish to try playing around with personification. Choose an object or an animal, and make a list of some of the actions it does using non-human language. Then try to change some of those words, stretching them to make them actions that people do. If you like one or more of your personification bits, write a poem around it. Practice this personification imagining in your life, and soon it will creep into your writing (see what I did there?) without you even noticing.
Example:
Vacuum cleans...........Vacuum dances............Vacuum gobbles
To
learn about many of the wonderful National Poetry Month projects
happening online this April, visit the generous Jama Rattigan at Jama's Alphabet Soup.
Here's to finding cozy moments in ever season and to seeking the humanity in all people, animals, and objects too.
xo,
a.
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