National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month.
How am I celebrating? Well, the fine people at the WordXWord spoken word festival have asked me, along with a few other poets, to write a poem a day for the entire month of April. While these are not Torah-related poems, and not all of them rhyme, I nonetheless figure that those who enjoy my poetry might be interested to see what I’m up to. (Besides, I spent a long time on today’s poem, so I want people to see it.) To give you a sample, here’s my poem from April 2nd:
“Perspective”
Last week I wrote
a fantastic poem
to alternately elicit laughter and tears
a poem that everyone would connect with
even you
but when I went to share it with an audience
I realized that someone had replaced it with a terrible poem
and I had not noticed earlier
because all the words were the same
So how are you celebrating National Poetry Month? Writing daily poems? Buying copies of God To Verse for all your friends? Writing limericks to a loved one? Posting on your own blog in verse? However you best deem fit, I hope you find interesting ways to enjoy April — if only to prove T.S. Eliot wrong.
A review is *not* about wtehher you like something. It’s an essay of sorts, so it is, by nature, your opinion, but the form requires that you evaluate your poem by the standards of what great poetry *ought* to be. It’s no different from reviewing a movie in that regard. No one cares wtehher you liked the movie. If that it even mentioned, it should be briefly. Readers want to know wtehher *they* will like it. Your job is to tell us wtehher this is a great poem, a good one, a fair, one, or a lousy one, and to give us a *detailed* account of how you evaluated it. For example, tell us about its rhyme and meter, but then explain why/how they are appropriate (or not). Look at other language devices and do the same. What is the poem’s theme? Is it something worthwhile. (Again, the big question is *not* wtehher you agree with the theme. You may mention that if you wish, but don’t dwell.)Get the idea?Best wishes!