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 29), 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 2022 NPM poster was designed by eleventh grader Lara L. from Saunders Trades and Technical High School in Yonkers, New York, who was the winner of the 2022 National Poetry Month Poster Contest, and features a line by 2021 Presidential Inaugural Poet and 2017 National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman. Request a free copy or download a PDF of this poster here.

Now, here’s a list of what some kidlit bloggers are doing. If you’re also celebrating Poetry Month with a special project or blog event, or know of anyone else who is, please leave a comment here or email me: 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 eleventh 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. Irene Latham is kicking things off today with the first line of a child-friendly poem at Live Your Poem. Here’s the full schedule of participating bloggers:

APRIL

1 Irene at Live Your Poem
2 Donna Smith at Mainely Write
3 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core
4 Mary Lee at A(nother) Year of Reading
5 Buffy at Buffy Silverman
6 Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
7 Kim Johnson at Common Threads
8 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities
9 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link
10 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance
11 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche
12 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
13 Karin Fisher-Golton at Still in Awe
14 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care
15 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in my Orchard
16 Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe
17 Ruth at There is no such thing as a God-forsaken Town 
18 Patricia at Reverie
19 Christie at Wondering and Wandering
20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge
21 Kevin at Dog Trax
22 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
23 Leigh Anne at A Day in the Life
24 Marcie Atkins 
25 Marilyn Garcia 
26 JoAnn Early Macken
27 Janice at Salt City Verse
28 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference
29 Karen Eastlund at Karen’s Got a Blog
30 Michelle Kogan Painting, Illustration, & Writing

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Author and illustrator Jena Benton will once again be highlighting poetry picture books every day this month at Of Tea and Mermaids. This is a great chance to learn about new titles with Jena’s commentary and a sample poem.

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Patricia J. Franz will be posting at her blog Reverie every day this month. Lots of goodies in store for us! Here is her schedule:

Mondays: Paint Chip Poetry partner poems

Tuesdays: “Delights” – revisiting a favorite or new poem I’ve stumbled upon

Wednesdays: an update on the Progressive Poem (I’m signed up for one of the days)

Thursdays: a poem from my NEVERMORES poetry group

Fridays: PoetryFriday poem

Saturdays: HaikuSaturday PhotoPoem

Sundays: another update on the Progressive Poem

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At Small Reads for Brighter Days, Laura Purdie Salas will be writing Sticky-Note Poems. She’s kicking things off today, April 1, with a video about poetry and a few poems. Then, for the rest of the month, she’ll share a new sticky-note poem each day — sometimes a haiku, sometimes an equation poem, sometimes just a short poem. In addition to her website blog, you can follow along on her social media (@LauraPSalas and #NPM2022).

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Michelle H. Barnes will be Filling the Well at Today’s Little Ditty. Playing with the stuff that inspires poetry, she’ll be creating daily “inspirational musings” that pair quotations with art, photography, poems, music, dance… anything that strikes her fancy and gives the words new life. Can’t wait to bask in the riches!

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At The Poem Farm, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s project this year is Pick a Proverb. Each day of April, she will share a proverb, the meaning of the proverb, and a poem inspired by that proverb. She will also share the proverb which will inspire the next day’s poem. She invites everyone to write from proverbs of their own choosing or to write proverb poems along with her (check out her Growing Proverbs List). A great project for classrooms as well as for individual poets.

She offers these suggestions for different ways to write these poems:

• Write a true story poem inspired by the proverb
• Make up a story poem connected to the proverb
• Write a poem agreeing with the proverb
• Write a poem disagreeing with the proverb
• Connect a fact or historical moment to the proverb
• Take any one word or bit from the proverb and write from that
• Anything else!

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Though this year she won’t be writing a poem a day for NPM (as she’s done for the last decade or so), Jone MacCulloch will be busy with her WIP, and on April Poetry Fridays she’ll be sharing three author interviews and celebrating a new anthology for middle schoolers on her blog. Here’s a preview of things to come:

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Mary Lee Hahn’s NPM project is Hope in a Time of Climate Crisis:

“I’m reading and listening to ALL WE CAN SAVE: TRUTH, COURAGE, AND SOLUTIONS FOR THE CLIMATE CRISIS. 

My poems this month will be inspired by the essays and poems in this book, and by this gorgeous living planet we call home.

Sometimes I get a panicky feeling about our future, but I’m trying hard to hold onto hope and to the actions I can take, no matter how small. It is not too late to turn things around, but I can’t sit on the couch waiting for someone else to do something.”

Check in daily for Mary Lee’s poems at Poetrepository.

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Linda Baie will be Hunting for Treasure at TeacherDance. She recently found a “Life is a Treasure Hunt” bookmark someone had left behind at her bookstore, and will write poems based on whatever treasures she may discover in the coming days. It’ll be interesting to see all the “riches” she’s acquired by the end of the month!

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Over at A Word Edgewise, Linda Mitchell will be busy writing poems inspired by her grandmother’s letters. She’ll work on drafts during the week and share her poems on Poetry Fridays.

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Like Mary Lee, Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe will be writing in response to the poetry and essays from All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson :

Quoting Favianna Rodriguez in her essay, “Harnessing Cultural Power,” who says we need to, “Make human stories to move human beings. Human stories are more powerful for inciting action than counting carbon or detailing melting glaciers,” Heidi will be challenging herself to:

“. . . center our fabulous, ferocious human stories in the poems I write in response to ALL WE CAN SAVE . . .  I’ll work principally with narrative, bringing what I’m learning about how we can save our foolish human asses from ourselves by connecting to the people–including us–whose very existence is threatened, now and in the near future, by unchecked climate chaos.”

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Janice Scully will be sharing a special interview with David Elliott about his new poetry picture book, At the Pond (Candlewick, 2022), at Salt City Verse on Friday, April 8. We’re excited to hear all about the latest title in his fabulous nature series (On the Farm, In the Wild, In the Sea, In the Woods). The art by Amy Schimler-Safford is gorgeous!

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Over at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme, Matt Forrest Esenwine is reviving his popular PoetryCUBED writing contest. Here are the rules:

• Use the 3 images (“cubed,” get it??) above as inspiration to write a poem.
• The poem can be any form, any number of lines, rhyming or not. 
• The only hitch is that you need to include a reference to all three images in the poem – either via concrete imagery or something more abstract. 
• Then email your poem to me at Matt (at) MattForrest (dot) com and I’ll share them here throughout the month – and at the end of April, one name will be drawn at random to receive a free, personally-signed copy of any of my books, your choice!

PoetryCUBED is simply a creative way to have fun writing and find new, unusual connections. Contest open to everyone.

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From Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wandering:

During the month of April, I will write poem-ish pieces inspired by my frequent walks in the natural world. Trails, paths, signs, and views always intrigue and inspire me. I have left my challenge open so that the poems may take any form — haiku, free verse, borrowed line, blackout — and who knows which direction they will go in or how often they will appear.

Looking forward to tagging along on her nature walks!

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At Imagine the Possibilities, Rose Cappelli’s project is Flowers from A-Z. She’ll be writing a poem about a different flower for every letter of the alphabet (plus a few extra), and sharing one or two of her favorites on Poetry Fridays.

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Lights! Camera! Action! Woof Woof Yappity Yap! Take your seats and enjoy brilliant canine poet Smidgey, who’s starring in, “Smidgey’s Identity Crisis Poetry Series” at Bridget Magee’s wee words for wee ones. Look for a new poetry video every Friday this month. All breeds welcome, cheese treats much appreciated.

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At Poetry for Children, Sylvia Vardell is once again featuring awesome poetry videos created by the graduate students in her “Poetry for Children” class at Texas Woman’s University. Each of them selected a poem from Hop To It: Poems To Get You Moving.

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Tricia Stohr-Hunt will be sharing original poems written in a variety of Japanese poetic forms (haiku, tanka, dodoitsu, etc.) at The Miss Rumphis Effect. These will be inspired by primary sources (photos, letters, newspaper articles and more).

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Welcome to the World, IMPERFECT II, a brand new poetry anthology for middle schoolers! This book is a tribute to the difficult work of keeping things in perspective. Editor Tabatha Yeatts is celebrating by posting every day this month at the IMPERFECT II blog. Find out all about the poets and the poems they contributed to this book!

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Here’s what Michelle Kogan will be up to at her blog:

“For National Poetry Month I’m continuing to work on a bird poetry book I started recently, and will share some of these poems. I’m hoping to share some art along with some of the poems, but if not then pics of the birds. Later in the month, in celebration of Earth Day, on Friday April 22nd, I will be sharing a book review on David Elliott’s inviting poetry picture book that’s coming out this month called At the Pond.”

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Robyn Hood Black is celebrating 10 years of artsyletters with poetry every Friday + “perfect-for-poets” gift ideas at her blog. She specializes in handcrafted literary items with a vintage vibe — jewelry, shadow boxes, bookmarks, journals, notecards, etc., and often incorporates upcycled elements in her creations (old stamps, maps, even typewriter keys).

Here’s a gorgeous “Poet” necklace she featured on April 1:

Can’t wait to see more!

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Leigh Anne Eck will be going on a “Journey with Poetry and Words” at her blog A Day in the Life. She’ll be joining others in her Time to Write writing group for a poem-a-day-challenge, trying out different forms each day inspired by a fun word of the day.

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Tanita S. Davis has decided to combine two poem-a-day challenges for her writing inspiration this month: Amy L. VanDerwater’s Pick a Proverb and Laura Purdie Salas’s Sticky-Note Poems. So, short poems on conventional wisdom. She plans on primarily using less familiar British and American proverbs.

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Jessica Coupé is also participating in a poem-a-day-challenge, drawing inspiration from a different nature photo each day.

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As she’s done every April for over a decade, Liz Garton Scanlon will be writing and sharing a haiku every day. This year she’s giving herself different prompts, and invites everyone to write along with her if they like. Her first nine days will be about the planets. 🙂

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Like her fellow Inklings Mary Lee and Heidi, Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core will also be writing poems inspired by the All We Can Save anthology, but she’ll also dip into Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt (Little Brown Spark, 2021) for ideas. She hopes to examine the connection between the two books.

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Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is featuring reviews and activities, and hosting various poets this month. On April 23 she’ll be doing an online virtual reading, and on May 1, she’ll be at Tunnicliff’s Tavern reading with other Poets on the Patio for the Literary Hill BookFest. She invites everyone to join her link-up, and check back through April for more upcoming events.

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Here is what Carol Varsalona will be up to this month at Beyond LiteracyLink:

• Writing poetryliscious poetry and creating digital art throughout April
• Capturing the “humanity of the moment” in photos
• Invitation:  I invite all interested bloggers, writers, & poets to create an artistic, poetic expression for my NPM 2022 Online Poetryliscious Gallery of Artistic Expressions (photos, image poems, inspirational quotes, poetry, etc.) to celebrate National Poetry Month 2022. If interested, please add your work to the Poetryliscious Padlet, a public repository I created at                https://padlet.com/cvarsalona/q1uymnafyupx3w8c or send your work to me and I will add it. The deadline to submit your work is Tuesday, April 26th.

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Here at Alphabet Soup, we’ll continue to feature interesting poems and books each Friday during the month. Look for a special Emily Dickinson post on April 15 that will include three recipes from the new Emily Dickinson Cookbook by Arlyn Osborne. 🙂

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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

1 Heidi at my juicy little universe
8 Janice at Salt City Verse
15 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
22 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
29 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch

♥️ 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 © 2022 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.