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 16 -
Students - Lately, a lot of people have been using the Merlin app, an app that will identify all of the birds singing or calling around you at any given time. As with so much technology, something about this seems magical, so much information instantly in our hands, at the quick press of a button. It's great in many ways. In other ways, I wonder if we lose something. Sometimes I am aok with not identifying something, not knowing, just lying back in the mystery. I know that mystery might not be enjoyable for everyone and that it's not even a mystery at all - just something I personally don't know - but all the same, I'm sometimes very good with not knowing something.
Today's poem is in three wee stanzas. The first simply makes an observation. The second offers a thought about the observation. The third offers an opposing thought about that same observation. I find it interesting to look at a poem after writing it, to name what happens in the different parts. Sometimes I plan it out ahead of time; usually it plans itself out, and I learn what happened after it's complete. As writers, we can read our and others' writing to see how it fits together, then we can consciously and subconsciously use what we learn in our new writing.
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.
Can you hear a bird calling or singing right now? If you want to learn its name, see if you can figure it out or use a tool. If you don't want to know it's name, that's good too.
xo,
a.
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