April is Poetry month and we have lots of poetry book suggestions to
keep you inspired all month long. Also as a treat, here is one of our favorite poems about
our favorite thing ever, the library!
A LIBRARY
(for Kelli Martin)
a Library Is:
a place to be free
to be in space
to be in cave times
to be a cook
to be a crook
to be in love
to be unhappy
to be quick and smart
to be contained and cautious
to surf the rainbow
to sail the dreams
to be blue
to be jazz
to be wonderful
to be you
a place to be
yeah… to be
-By Nikki Giovanni
How to Write a Poem by Kwame Alexander
“From this first stanza, readers are invited to pay attention–and to see that paying attention itself is poetry. Kwame Alexander and Deanna Nikaido’s playful text and Melissa Sweet’s dynamic, inventive artwork are paired together to encourage readers to listen, feel, and discover the words that dance in the world around them–poems just waiting to be written down.”– Provided by publisher.
Love that Dog by Sharon Creech
A young student, who comes to love poetry through a personal
understanding of what different famous poems mean to him, surprises himself by writing his own inspired poem.
The Universe in Verse: 15 Portraits to Wonder Through Science & Poetry
“Poetry and science, as Popova writes in her introduction, “are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply.” In 15 short essays on subjects ranging from the mystery of dark matter and the infinity of pi to the resilience of trees and the intelligence of octopuses, Popova tells the stories of scientific searching and discovery. Each essay is paired with a poem reflecting its subject by poets ranging from Emily Dickinson, W. H. Auden, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, and Tracy K. Smith”– Provided by publisher.
“Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility–“What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief?”–and a body seized by pain and vertigo as well as ecstasy. A nation convulses: “Every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza, something brutal.” And still Limón shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives. “Fine then, / I’ll take it,” she writes.
“I’ll take it all.” In Bright Dead Things, Limón showed us a heart “giant with power, heavy with blood”–“the huge beating genius machine / that thinks, no, it knows, / it’s going to come in first.” In her follow-up collection, that heart is on full display–even as The Carrying continues further and deeper into the bloodstream,
following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.”–Publisher’s website.
“A new, feminist translation of Beowulf by the author of the much-buzzed-about novel The Mere Wife”– Provided by publisher
Written by Ceilidh Jimenez