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 27), 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 2023 poster was designed by Marc Brown, creator of the popular Arthur book and PBS television series. The artwork incorporates an excerpted line from the poem “Carrying” by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón. Brown 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. Request a free copy or download a PDF of the 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. Mary Lee Hahn is kicking things off tomorrow with the first line of a child-friendly poem at A(nother) Year of Reading. Here’s the full schedule of participating bloggers:

April 1 Mary Lee Hahn, Another Year of Reading

April 2 Heidi Mordhorst, My Juicy Little Universe

April 3 Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference 

April 4 Buffy Silverman 

April 5 Rose Cappelli, Imagine the Possibilities

April 6 Donna Smith, Mainely Write

April 7 Margaret Simon, Reflections on the Teche

April 8 Leigh Anne, A Day in the Life

April 9 Linda Mitchell, A Word Edgewise

April 10 Denise Krebs, Dare to Care

April 11 Emma Roller, Penguins and Poems

April 12 Dave Roller, Leap Of Dave 

April 13 Irene Latham Live You Poem 

April 14 Janice Scully, Salt City Verse

April 15 Jone Rush MacCulloch

April 16 Linda Baie TeacherDance

April 17 Carol Varsalona, Beyond Literacy Link

April 18 Marcie Atkins 

April 19 Carol Labuzzetta at The Apples in My Orchard 

April 20 Cathy Hutter, Poeturescapes

April 21 Sarah Grace Tuttle at Sarah Grace Tuttle’s Blog, 

April 22 Marilyn Garcia 

April 23 Catherine at Reading to the Core

April 24 Janet Fagal, hosted by Tabatha, The Opposite of Indifference

April 25 Ruth, There is no Such Thing as a God-Forsaken Town

April 26 Patricia J. Franz, Reverie

April 27 Theresa Gaughan, Theresa’s Teaching Tidbits

April 28 Karin Fisher-Golton, Still in Awe Blog

April 29 Karen Eastlund, Karen’s Got a Blog

April 30 Michelle Kogan Illustration, Painting, and Writing

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Laura Purdie Salas invites everyone to join in on her Digging for Poems Project.

Basically, she’s going to write a very short poem each day, based on two things:

• a handful of magnetic poetry words
• a topic chosen from five words on a game board card

Each day on her Small Reads for Brighter Days blog link, she’ll share items 1 and 2. And she’ll also share the poem she wrote based on the previous day’s items 1 and 2. She hopes educators, students, and other poetry friends will play along and share their poems in the comments.

Here’s a video with more details:

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Heidi Mordhorst will be adding kids’ poems weekly on Wednesdays to the new WHISPERshout Magazine, publishing poetry and art by kids ages 4-12. 

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Laura Shovan is hosting a poetry project at Authors Take Action:

Children’s poets and authors are invited to share prompts for the Authors Take Action #ClimatePoemProject. The idea is to provide a month of daily poetry prompts for children and classrooms based on our theme, climate. Those who are interested in participating should email Laura Shovan. https://laurashovan.com/contact/

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Jone Rush MacCulloch is going to be busy this month with a variety of activities, including weekly interviews, daily videos and hosting the Classic Found Poem Palooza. Check it out:

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At her blog Reverie, Patricia J. Franz will be exercising her poetic muscle with a 30 Poems/30 Forms/30 Days challenge. Look for an original poem written in a different poetic form each day of April. Check out her full schedule here.

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Over at Of Tea and Mermaids, Jena Benton will be sharing a poetry picture book every day during the entire month of April. Wonderful way to learn about new-to-you books!

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There will be some alphabetical fun at TeacherDance!! Linda Baie will be using R is for Rhyme: A Poetry Alphabet by Judy Young and Victor Juhasz (Sleeping Bear Press, 2010), which follows the alphabet with one kind of prompt each day. This is a book Linda occasionally used in the classroom, and now she’s looking forward to working through it day by day.

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JoAnn Early Macken will be posting an original poem every day this month at her website blog. Visit often and enjoy!

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Look for Before the Zinnias Bloom: A Month of Cheritas by Mary Lee Hahn of A(nother) Year of Reading. Here’s how she describes her project:

“This year, my National Poetry Month project will feature the cherita form. At the website The Cherita, the form is defined thus: ‘Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse…The cherita tells a story.’ Like last year, I will be publishing my poems daily at Poetrepository and crossposting here each Friday for Poetry Friday.”

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Head on over to The Poem Farm, where Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is featuring 24 Hours. Here’s Amy with all the details:

“This year, for each day of April, I will share a new poem about 1 hour in 1 day in the life of an old barn. I will write 24 hourly poems, 1 for each hour of a spring day, beginning with midnight and ending right before the following midnight. Because April has 30 days, I will write and tuck 6 additional poems into the month, likely 2 at the beginning, 2 in the middle somewhere, and 2 at the end.

I invite you to join me in this project! 

To do so, simply:

1. Choose a place or a person, an animal or an object you could imagine writing 30 poems about, someone or something you could imagine following and writing about through an imaginary day.

2. If you wish, download the note taking sheet at The Poem Farm to keep track of poem ideas as you have them through the month. You may do this project on your own, with a friend or two, or with your whole class, each person selecting different hours.

3. Write a new poem each day of April 2023. You might write in order of the hours (I probably will), or you might choose to write your hourly poems in a mixed-up order and place them in order at month’s end. If you miss a day, do not worry. Just come on back to your project when you can.

4. Teachers and writers, if you wish to share your 24 HOURS subjects or poems, please do so on social media with the hashtag #24Hours. Teachers, if you have permission from parents and only first names on student poems, I will share their topics and poems here in a Google Slides presentation.

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Spine Poems maven Annette Dauphin Simon will be sharing a spine poem each day on Facebook and Instagram. These will include poems for kids as well as grown-ups. If you’re not familiar with spine poems, or would like to see samples from her excellent book, click here. These are such fun!!

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Michelle Kogan is also participating in Laura Shovan’s ClimatePoemProject. She’s started things off by asking students to write a concrete/shape poem on an endangered pollinator, and then adding their poems in the comments of her blog or emailing them to her. More details in this post.

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National Poetry Month wouldn’t be the same without Liz Garton Scanlon’s haiku-a-day challenge (14th consecutive year!). This year she’s using “scientific processes” as her prompts. She invites everyone to join her (using prompts or their own noticing) by hashtagging their poems with #30daysofhaiku, #nationalpoetrymonth, and/or #lizshares poems — whether you’re on FB, Twitter, or Instagram. If you like, visit her blog and leave your haiku in the comments. 🙂 Happy Writing!

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From Carol Varsalona at Beyond LiteracyLink:

Since Springtime is an inspiring time to energize your writing spirit as optimistic troubadours of life, I cordially invite all interested writers, artists, photographers, poets, friends, family, and students to join me at my newest online gallery of artistic expressions, Springsations.

The invitation to the event is here. I created a padlet to store all the poetic expressions at springsations-gallery-of-artistic-expressions-vol-2-for-npm–kf5c2nia2mez8d1n. The deadline for submission is April 30, 2023.

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MORE POEM-A-DAY CHALLENGES:

At The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia Stohr-Hunt will be writing in a variety of poetic forms to primary sources from the National Archives and the Library of Congress. She’ll post her daily poem with its primary source at her blog, and a graphic mashup of both on Instagram.

Janice Scully will be writing a haiku based on something she would like to remember (like a snapshot) each day this month at Salt City Verse.

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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 Charlotte Brontë Birthday Celebration on Friday, April 21, and an interview with Charles Ghigna about The Father Goose Treasury of Poetry on Friday, April 28.

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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

7 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
14 Jone at Jone Rush MacCulloch
21 Karen at Karen Edmisten*
28 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 © 2023 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.