“Poets sing our human music for us.” ~ Carol Ann Duffy

Welcome to Poetry Friday at Alphabet Soup!
Hope you’re having a good April and enjoying National Poetry Month, whether you’re reading, writing, listening to, or discovering new poets (or all of the above). 🙂
I do love poems about poetry, and can’t think of a better time to share this favorite by former UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
I found it in her New and Collected Poems for Children (Faber & Faber, 2014), which includes some new verses along with work from four of her award-winning collections. It’s simply chock full of goodness — there’s even an alphabet poem which I should share some time.

I find it interesting that UK Poet Laureates serve for such long terms. Although they’re now appointed to 10-year fixed terms, prior to 1999, they served for life (upon recommendation from the prime minister and approval of the sovereign).
Carol Ann’s tenure was from 2009-2019. She was the first female, the first Scot, and the first openly gay and bisexual poet to be so honored, breaking a longstanding tradition of almost 400 years! UK Poet Laureates receive an annual honorarium and a barrel of sherry. 🙂

THE WORDS OF POEMS by Carol Ann Duffy The words of poems are nails which tack the wind to a page, so that the gone hour when your kite pulled you over the field blows in your hair. They’re hand-mirrors, a poem’s words, holding the wept tears on your face, like a purse holds small change, or the breath that said things. They’re fishing-nets, scooping sprats and tiddlers out of a stream or the gleaming trout that startled the air when you threw it back. The words of poems are stars, dot-to-dots of the Great Bear, the Milky Way your telescope caught; or breves filled with the light of the full moon you saw from your bedroom window; or little flames like the tongues of Hallowe’en candles. The words of poems are spells, dropping like pennies into a wishing-well, remember the far splash? They’re sparklers, scrawling their silver loops and hoops on the night, again in your gloved fist on November the Fifth. They’re goldfish in their sad plastic bags at the fair, you stood there. The words of poems are coins in a poor man’s hat; the claws of a lost cat. The words of poems are who you were.

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Now, please leave your links with the dashing Mr. Linky below. Enjoy gallivanting from blog to blog, reading the many words of poems being shared this week. Thank you for joining us and have a nice weekend. You can find the NPM Kidlitosphere Roundup at Susan Bruck’s Soul Blossom Living.
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*Copyright © 2021 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.