April Is: National Poetry Month april-is

April 30, 2025: Dead Stars, Ada Limón Dead Stars Ada Limón Out here, there’s a bowing even the trees are doing. Winter’s icy hand at the back of all of us. Black bark, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness that...

Saying farewell to another April of #poetry with my best beloved Ada Limón:

"Look, we are not unspectacular things. /
We’ve come this far, survived this much. / [...]

What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, No."

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01.05.2025 16:14 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

The poet: "This poem articulates my belief that grief isn’t a dead thing; it’s very much alive and continues to shape how I grow and live in this world. This #poem says: healing is forever, another world is possible, and no nation will protect us, only we will.”

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30.04.2025 16:53 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 28, 2025: Connor Everywhere But, Adam Falkner Connor Everywhere But Adam Falkner after Jericho Brown Connor on the four train, sports page rolled into a drumstick. Connor stretched out shirtless on the front lawn, a football propped ...

This one knocked the breath right out of me.

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29.04.2025 01:32 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 27, 2025: De'an, Heid E. Erdrich De'an Heid E. Erdrich Dogs so long with us we forget that wolves allowed as how they might be tamed and sprang up all over the globe, with all humans, all at once, like a good idea. So we tamed our.....

Did you know Louise Erdrich's sister is a poet, too? I didn't!

Always a sucker for a good dog #poem.

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27.04.2025 22:35 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 26, 2025: Butter, Olive Oil, Flour, Lucia Cherciu Butter, Olive Oil, Flour Lucia Cherciu Even the grocery list is a love poem, a prayer— God, let me keep what I love. Peaches, cheap. Books, brilliant— mine so I can underline. How aromatic the...

"God, let me keep what I love. / Peaches, cheap. Books, brilliant—"

april-is.tumblr.com/post/7819051...

26.04.2025 20:16 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

A juicy one for you tonight: rhyme and rhythm and that ending, phew.

a remix for remembrance, Kristiana Rae Colón

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26.04.2025 03:03 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

American Sonnet for the New Year, Terrance Hayes:

"things got terribly ugly incredibly quickly /
things got ugly embarrassingly quickly"

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24.04.2025 20:56 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Staircase

I trip on the title,
clumsy as I am, and
topple down the first few

(This one tickles me; I am tickled.)

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23.04.2025 23:49 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 22, 2025: Meanwhile the Watermelon Seed, Idra Novey Meanwhile the Watermelon Seed Idra Novey On Tuesday, new prisoners arrive. In late fall, when leaves clog the gutters and their last colors go out like stars, new prisoners arrive. As another plane...

This stopped me in my tracks with how specific it feels to current events. But of course its point is just the opposite.

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22.04.2025 15:15 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 21, 2025: An Improvement in Stairs, Mairead Small Staid An Improvement in Stairs Mairead Small Staid Through the oculus of the bus terminal at Boston’s South Station, light falls for a hundred feet. A shock, a god, a pillar of light, like that of the...

There should be many more poems with Dunkin' Donuts in them. An Improvement in Stairs, Mairead Small Staid:

april-is.tumblr.com/post/7814874...

22.04.2025 01:17 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 20, 2025: Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands, Felix Lecocq Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands Felix Lecocq -- (Today's poem is shared as an image, and includes a transcription of the poem as alt text. If...

#Poem in the Shape of the Poet Beating Henry Kissinger to Death with Their Bare Hands: april-is.tumblr.com/post/7813730...

20.04.2025 19:02 — 👍 7 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

April 19, 2025: spring, Safia Elhillo spring Safia Elhillo After Louise Glück it’s late now, it’s early, no way to know which season it is of the total years of my life, weren’t we only just nineteen, tonya & i, wasn’t she only...

Maybe it's my age. Or my personal fixations on time and memory. But wow, this one packs a punch.

april-is.tumblr.com/post/7812930... #poem #poetry

19.04.2025 21:58 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I want a president, Zoe Leonard - Amazing when something can be such an important snapshot of a moment in time -- 1992 -- and still feel desperately fresh and relevant.

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19.04.2025 21:41 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

More poems about time machines, please. april-is.tumblr.com/post/7811199...

18.04.2025 13:53 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 16, 2025: As a Human Being, Jericho Brown As a Human Being Jericho Brown There is the happiness you have And the happiness you deserve. They sit apart from one another The way you and your mother Sat on opposite ends of the sofa After an...

Reading this is such a journey.

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16.04.2025 22:57 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 15, 2025: Tree, Jane Hirshfield Tree Jane Hirshfield It is foolish to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That great calm being, this clutter of soup pots and...

That ending tho'.

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16.04.2025 02:49 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 14, 2025: Sorrows, Lucille Clifton Sorrows Lucille Clifton who would believe them winged who would believe they could be beautiful who would believe they could fall so in love with mortals that they would attach themselves as.....

Sorrows - "who would believe them winged /
who would believe they could be /

beautiful who would believe /
they could fall so in love with mortals"

Lucille Clifton, always [chef's kiss]. april-is.tumblr.com/post/7808438...

15.04.2025 17:38 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

April 13, 2025: Book of Zippers, Luci Arbus-Scandiffio Book of Zippers Luci Arbus-Scandiffio When I was a child I was always touching something the crease in the wall the crease in the man’s face a button to the umbrella which I broke by pressing thirty.....

I love poems that capture the feeling of being a child, the complexity/simplicity of the child mind. april-is.tumblr.com/post/7807703...

14.04.2025 22:12 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 12, 2025: Instead of Depression, Andrea Gibson Instead of Depression Andrea Gibson try calling it hibernation. Imagine the darkness is a cave in which you will be nurtured by doing absolutely nothing. Hibernating animals don’t even dream. It’s...

Such tenderness in this one.

Instead of Depression, Andrea Gibson:

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14.04.2025 16:49 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 11, 2025: Conversation with Mary, Gabrielle Bates Conversation with Mary Gabrielle Bates What language did the angel speak My most private language Was the angel fluent Nuances were lost Where did the....

A somewhat sacrilegious catechism: Conversation with Mary, Gabrielle Bates

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14.04.2025 03:19 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 10, 2025: Tin Bucket, Jenny George Tin Bucket Jenny George The world is not simple. Anyone will tell you. But have you ever washed a person’s hair over a tin bucket, gently twisting the rope of it to wring the water out? At the end of....

Tin Bucket by Jenny George. One I want to keep rereading, to try to pick apart.

april-is.tumblr.com/post/7804839... #nationalpoetrymonth #poetry

11.04.2025 18:51 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

"An astronaut and a samurai fall in love. /
They write each other /
haiku and billet-doux /
via time capsule."

kami/kaze : a correspondence, Ng Yi-Sheng - april-is.tumblr.com/post/7803896...

10.04.2025 14:47 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 8, 2025: What Is White?, Mary O'Neill What Is White? Mary O'Neill White is a dove And lily of the valley And a puddle of milk Spilled in an alley – A ship’s sail, A kite’s tail, A wedding veil Hailstones and Halibut bones And some...

With compliments from my daughter: What is White?, Mary O'Neill

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10.04.2025 13:19 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Somehow my first time sending Robert Bly. The second-to-last line lives rent free in my head.

The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog: april-is.tumblr.com/post/7801794...

#poetry #nationalpoetrymonth #napomo

07.04.2025 15:03 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

April 6, 2025: At Last the New Arriving, Gabrielle Calvocoressi At Last the New Arriving Gabrielle Calvocoressi Like the horn you played in Catholic school the city will open its mouth and cry out. Don't worry 'bout nothing. Don't mean no thing. It will leave you....

How I love this final couplet.

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07.04.2025 13:36 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

April 5, 2025: Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars), Muriel Rukeyser Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars) Muriel Rukeyser I lived in the first century of world wars. Most mornings I would be more or less insane, The newspapers would arrive with their...

Amazing how relevant a #poem written in the 1950s can feel. And how that fact makes the first/last line resonate.

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06.04.2025 15:01 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

April 4, 2025: Becoming a Poet, Susan Browne Becoming a Poet Susan Browne I was five, lying facedown on my bed when someone stabbed me in the back, all the way through to my heart. I screamed & my parents came running, my father carrying me into...

Friday's #poem: Becoming a Poet, Susan Browne - "I looked over my father’s shoulder / at the dark ocean of air, / at the colorful, iridescent fish."

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04.04.2025 20:03 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

Kai Cheng Thom: On the Origin of #Trans Femmes

"we are the daughters / of witches / that they could and did burn"

#poem here: april-is.tumblr.com/post/7798575...

04.04.2025 17:36 — 👍 10 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

April 2, 2025: This Spring, James A. Pearson This Spring James A. Pearson How can I love this spring when it's pulling me through my life faster than any time before it? When five separate dooms are promised this decade and here I am, just...

"When five separate dooms / are promised this decade" -- (The last 3 lines of this, though!)

This Spring, James A. Pearson:
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03.04.2025 15:34 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

April 1, 2025: Bad New Government, Emily Berry Bad New Government Emily Berry Love, I woke in an empty flat to a bad new government; it was cold the fridge was still empty my heart, that...

Starting the month with a #poem that feels particularly apt: Bad New Government, Emily Berry - april-is.tumblr.com/post/7796509...

01.04.2025 18:46 — 👍 6 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 2

Posts by April Is: National Poetry Month (@april-is.bsky.social)