POETIC INSPIRATIONS

Amanda Gorman, the nation’s first youth poet laureate reading of The Hill We Climb at this year’s inauguration showed what poetry can do. Gorman not only revived an interest in poetry, but also proved art has and always will have the ability to move, enlighten and maybe even save us. If you’ve never read or heard her poem before, or want to be inspired once again, hear it in her own words here.

POEMS & POETS WE LOVE:

Cindy Layton: Fiction writers benefit from incorporating the best of what poetry does into their prose. These blog posts provide an explanation and hands-on advice on how to do that.
https://www.writermag.com/improve-your-writing/poetry/when-verse-meets-prose/

https://theeditorsblog.net/2011/03/29/add-poetry-to-your-prose-write-with-flair/

How are song lyrics similar to poetry? Can a song be a poem? It’s a definite, ‘it depends’. Read more here: http://bostonreview.net/forum/poetry-brink/difference-between-poetry-and-song-lyrics

Nancy Sackheim:

A Valediction:  Forbidding Mourning, by John Donne

A Display of Mackerel by Mark Doty

In Centerfield by Steven H. Biondolillo. I've included the YouTube link since poetry should be read aloud:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd8l7tcBGNE

Elizabeth Solar: Sonnet 116: Let me not the the marriage of true minds  (I have a special connection to this Sonnet because: 1) Sister Louise, my high school English teacher, made Shakespeare feel contemporary and vital. 2.) Because my husband and I used a bit of this gem in our wedding vows.)

Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Walt Whitman  I Hear America Singing (A poetic salve we need right now)

For the more poetically adventurous: Bhanu Kapil’s Handwritten Preface to Reverse the Book

Kimberley Allen McNamara: I Love Langston Hughes. One of my favorites: I Loved My Friend

Growing up I distinctly remember loving Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade being read at a school assembly by some "wicked" cool 8th graders and being moved by the words "into the Valley of Death rode the six hundred". Later, I incorrectly associated the poem with the Polish soldiers who met Hitler's tanks on horses. Read it here.

My favorite poem book (for adults & parents to read w/mid-grade children): Love That Dog

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. This poem holds a dear place in my heart. My mother read this at my wedding and then poem was read at my father’s funeral (he was a recreational pilot and served in the air force) read it here.

Mary Oliver is also a favorite (there are SO many) but The Summer Day is a definite must read.

Victoria Fortune: Yikes! I need a minute!!