Celebrate National Poetry Month with LRACW!

By Linda Scisson

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month? Yes, indeed, thanks to the Academy of American Poets!

For poetry fans in Little Rock, there is a display of poetry books, quotes, and related items in the entranceway of the Terry branch library, 2015 Napa Valley Drive, in west Little Rock, across the street from Pulaski Academy. The display will be there through April 30, 2013.

I was fortunate to display poetry items at the Terry branch in February 2010, and you will find similar and new features with my current poetry display.

As a member of the Little Rock chapter of American Christian Writers, I would choose poetry as my favorite genre. Often I have turned to this form of writing to find literature that is pure, lovely, admirable, noble, truthful, righteous, excellent, and praiseworthy, as these attributes are what our sacred text tells me that I am to think on (Philippians 4:8).

By God’s grace, I have found a number of poems that tend to hoist me on the highway of holiness (Isaiah 35:8) and, as a lesson in contrast, I suppose, other poems that point in lesser directions.

While my poetry display in a public library is not distinctively Christian in nature, I certainly attempted to keep the guidelines of the Central Arkansas Library System in mind: To display “material that is “of educational, cultural, civic or recreational interest to a broad spectrum of the general public.” Also, I am not to “proselytize specific religious or ideological views” or include “materials that would be offensive to the prevailing moral standards of the community.”

The Terry Library is open 9 AM to 8 PM on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; and 9 AM to 6 PM on Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday.

Besides the availability to see this poetry display at the Terry Library in April, a number of published poets will take part in the Arkansas Literary Festival, a four-day event from April 18-21, 2013.

And April is one month of each year that various chapters of the Poets Roundtable of Arkansas (founded in 1931) have their monthly meetings throughout the state.

And did you know that April 18 (a Thursday) is “Poem in Your Pocket Day”? This is an event created by the Academy of American Poets, with these instructions: Select a poem you enjoy, carry it with you, and share it with co-workers, family, and friends. While it’s a simple idea, I find it to be quite a challenge to select only one poem. Right now, it’s a toss-up among three: Scott Cairns’ “Possible Answers to Prayer”, Richard Wilbur’s “A Christmas Hymn”, and Susan Ludvigson’s “The Lilies of Landsford Canal.”