Happy April and Happy National Poetry Month!

It’s time once again to read, write, share, and simply indulge your love for poetry in every way. I’m happy to be back rounding everyone up this year and look forward to checking in with all of you throughout April.

New to National Poetry Month and wondering about ways to celebrate? Visit the NPM webpage at The Academy of American Poets (poets.org) for a cool list of activities, initiatives and resources. You can learn about Poem in Your Pocket Day (April 18), sign up for Poem-a-Day to receive poems in your inbox, and review 30 Ways to Celebrate NPM online, at home, in the classroom, or at readings/events near you. Do as much, or as little, as you please. Just enjoy!

The 2024 poster features artwork by award-winning children’s author and illustrator Jack Wong, and lines from “blessing the boats” by beloved poet Lucille Clifton. Wong was selected by Scholastic—the global children’s publishing, education, and media company—to create the artwork for this year’s poster as part of a new National Poetry Month initiative between the publisher and the Academy of American Poets. You can download a free PDF of this poster here, and check out the Teach This Poem lesson featuring the poem and the poster here.

Now, here’s a list of what some kidlit bloggers are doing. If you’re also celebrating National Poetry Month with a special project or blog event, or know of anyone else who is, please email me at: readermail (at) jamakimrattigan (dot) com, so I can add the information to this Roundup. Thanks, and have a beautiful, inspiring, uplifting, productive, and memorable April!

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Hooray, it’s Progressive Poem time again! Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche has recruited 30 poets for the twelvth annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem. This is a wonderful community writing project where a poem travels daily from blog to blog, with each host adding a new line. Patricia Franz is kicking things off on Monday with the first line of a child-friendly poem at Reverie. Here’s the full schedule of participating bloggers:

April 1 Patricia Franz at Reverie
April 2  Jone MacCulloch
April 3 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse
April 4 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life
April 5 Irene at Live Your Poem
April 6 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
April 7  Marcie Atkins
April 8 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a God Forsaken Town
April 9  Karen Eastlund
April 10 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
April 11  Buffy Silverman 
April 12 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise
April 13 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
April 14 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
April 15 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
April 16  Sarah Grace Tuttle
April 17 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe
April 18 Tabatha at Opposite of Indifference
April 19 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
April 20 Tricia Stohr-Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect
April 21 Janet, hosted at Reflections on the Teche
April 22 Mary Lee Hahn at A(nother) Year of Reading
April 23 Tanita Davis at (fiction, instead of lies)
April 24 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone
April 25 Joanne Emery at Word Dancer 
April 26 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
April 27 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
April 28 Dave at Leap of Dave
April 29 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
April 30 Michelle Kogan at More Art for All

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Laura Purdie Salas will be writing and sharing a “Magnipoem” each day this month. Using a Private Eye loupe or magnifying stand, she’ll look very closely and study an object for a whole, long minute, then write about her observations and reactions (see sample below). Join all the fun at her Small Reads for Brighter Days blog.

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Denise Krebs will be joining VerseLove, a 30-day poetry writing community that meets daily at Ethical ELA. Each day a different teacher/poet hosts by sharing a prompt, which will be posted at the website at 5:00 a.m. Central Time each day in April. Denise will be hosting on April 9 and Margaret Simon will host on April 14. Participants are invited to stop by for one, two, three, or all 30 days throughout the month. For more information and FAQs, click here.

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Over at her blog Of Tea and Mermaids, Jena Benton Lasley will once again be featuring poetry picture books throughout the month. Look for titles Jena has read recently Monday through Friday, with Simply 7 Interviews from last year on Saturdays and Sundays. Such a great way to learn about new-to-you books!

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Linda Baie at TeacherDance will be thinking of Paul Janeczko during April as she uses his book POETRY FROM A to Z: A Guide for Young Writers as inspiration. She enjoyed using parts of this book with her classes off and on in the past, and now plans to work through it from start to finish. I’m not familiar with this book and am looking forward to Linda’s writing responses.

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At her blog The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha Yeatts invites everyone to join her in this NPM challenge:

“My National Poetry Month project this April will be short story-based: 

Take a short story (from a magazine, anthology, one you’ve written, wherever) and… 

* write a black-out poem 
* a poem for two voices (two of the characters talking) 
* a poem about the setting 
* a summary 
* a poem imagining the inspiration for the story 
* a poem that changes the story in some way 
* or whatever you want to do! 

Some links to short stories in case anybody would like help getting started: 

* 100 Great Short Stories 
* 75 SHORT Short Stories 

* 50 Feel-Good Short Stories

My blog is here: https://tabathayeatts.blogspot.com/

People can email me poems here: tabatha@tabathayeatts.com.”

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Look for Tricia Stohr-Hunt’s spine poems all month long at The Miss Rumphius Effect. “I figure this is a great way for me to revisit the books on my shelves and dig deep into poetry and children’s literature.” Definitely a fun way to celebrate (I love seeing other people’s books!). Tricia’s sample poem is pictured above.

In the sea

on the wing

between earth and sky

light and shadow

Everything is a poem

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Liz Garton Scanlon will be writing daily haiku again — for the 15th consecutive year! This year she will be focusing on things she’s grateful for. She invites everyone to join her, reading and writing their own on Instagram and/or Facebook, using the hashtags #lizsharespoems, #30daysofhaiku, and #nationalpoetrymonth. Liz also posts her daily haiku at her website blog.

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For poetry minimalists who like playing with words: During April, Tim Canny (a.k.a. Francis S. Poesy) will be celebrating NPM by participating in International Pwoermd Writing Month. He’ll write at least one “pwoermd” (poem word) every day and post it on social media.

“A pwoermd is a one-word poem. No title, just a poem. Or just a title, which also serves as the poem. To participate, just create pwoermds this month. The goal should be one pwoermd a day, but you can do more, and there’s no rule about skipping any number of days. Just make or choose words and call them pwoermds.”

Examples: “crumplete,” “stratragic,” “consonaut.”

Check out Tim’s pwoermds on (Twitter)X and Bluesky. View more pwoermd aficionados via social media hashtags #pwoermd and #pwoermds.

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Amy Ludwig VanDerwater at The Poem Farm is inviting everyone to participate in her fun project:

“This year at The Poem Farm, I will study crows and share a new crow poem each day of April. The number of lines in each poem will correspond to the date, with a 1-line poem on April 1…and a 30-line poem on April 30. If you’d like to play along, simply choose a topic that you’d like to explore for 30 days. It might be a subject that you already know a lot about or perhaps you’ll explore something new.

I invite you to join me in this project! 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a subject that you would like to stick with for 30 days. You might choose something you know lots about…or like me, you might choose something you will read and learn about throughout April.

3. Write a new poem for each day of April 2024, corresponding the number of lines in your poem to the date. For example, the poem for April 1 will have 1 line. The poem for April 14 will have 14 lines. The poem for April 30 will have 30 lines. OR….invent your own idea!

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share any ONE MORE LINE… subjects or poems, please email them to me or tag me @amylvpoemfarm. I would love to see what your students write and to know that we are growing these lines…and our understandings of different subjects…together.”

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JoAnn Early Macken is writing daily “Lost and Found” poems in a variety of poetic forms this month. She’s sharing them at her website blog, on Facebook, and at Bluesky. Here’s a sample poem:

Note to Self

Purple notebook,
purple pen.
April is reason enough.
Write again.

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Right here at Alphabet Soup, we’ll continue to feature interesting poems and books every Friday with a couple of giveaways. 🙂

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Finally, don’t forget to check in with April’s Poetry Friday hosts to see what other bloggers are sharing in the kidlitosphere each week:

April

5 Irene at Live Your Poem
12 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
19 Heidi at my juicy little universe
26 Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town

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♥️ I’ll continue to update this Roundup throughout April, so do check back! For your convenience, a link to this Roundup can be found in the sidebar of this blog.

Wishing you a thoroughly nourishing, inspiring, productive, interesting, and enlightening Poetry Month!

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*Copyright © 2024 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.