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 27 -
Students - Living near the woods as I do, at this time of year, I will often hear woodpeckers loudly drumming on distant trees, claiming territory and calling in mates.The speaker in today's poem describes a woodpecker drilling and then speaks directly to the woodpecker itself. When a poet speaks to something not present, this is called an apostrophe poem. The last few lines of today's poem address an absent woodpecker as the speaker thinks about its territory, its claiming, its life so different than that of the human speaker.
Which faraway person or animal or object might your speaker address in a poem? What might your speaker say to this person or animal or object? Remember: the speaker of your poem need not be you. The speaker of your poem can be anyone or anything at all, real or imagined. And if you wish, you might even take a poem you already wrote and now revise it somehow, as an apostrophe poem. We can always turn our poems inside out and upside down. They're ours to play with!
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.
My hope for you today is that you will hear a nature sound that surprises you...
xo,
a.
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