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Tuesday, March 31, 2015

April Is National Poetry Month: “What Will Your Verse Be?”

I am a fiction writer and an academic scholar, and wouldn’t use the term “poet” to label myself, but I do use poetry to make my prose pop.

Every April – National Poetry Month – for the past three or four years, I have (tried) to participate in Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-A-Day Challenge, which is to write a poem based on a prompt every day of the month.

I say I have “tried” because I usually end up missing a few days (OK, sometimes an entire week), but even if I just try to write a handful of poems during the month, I see a vast improvement in the literary quality of my prose. It challenges me to think differently about language.

I encourage all of you – even those of you who do not identify as “poets” – to do something poetry-related this April. Here are some suggestions:


If I cannot convince you of the merits of poetry, perhaps Robin Williams in Dead Poet’s Society can:



What will your verse be?

Written by Anne Greenawalt, writer and writing instructor

2 comments:

  1. Great post to get us ready for April poetry. Another option is a class here at WOW called Poetry Exercises to Jump Start Your Muse. It starts soon!
    http://wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/BernadetteGeyer_PoetryExercisesToJumpStartYourMuseII.php

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  2. Thanks for the resources, Anne!

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