National Poetry Month 2012

April is here again — time for those April showers and for filing those tax returns. But did you know that April is also National Poetry Month?

National Poetry Month was established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets to celebrate and bring attention to an art form that predates literacy.  Two of the most famous epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer (ca. 8^th century BC), were passed down orally for many years until being written down.  Another is the epic of Gilgamesh, dating from 4^th century Mesopotamia.  Since these early beginnings there have always been poets among us writing poetry.  Most of us can remember if not a whole poem, a fragment  of one, such as “I think that I shall never see , a poem lovely as a tree” or “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue”!

Today poetry can be found all around us if we slow down and take the time to notice.   Here are a few ways to do just that–

• Take a look at that anthology of poems or volume of Robert Frost or Walt Whitman (just to name two) that’s waiting to be opened, in your home or that of a friend or relative.
• If you come across a poem in a magazine that regularly features them such as the New Yorker, Reader’s Digest or even a local Pennysaver, stop and read it.
• Come into the Syosset Public Library and browse our varied collection of poetry.
• Visit the “30 Ways to Celebrate Poetry” page of the Academy of American Poets’ website to read about more ideas for incorporating poetry into our lives, such as signing up for the “Poem a Day” email.

However way you find it,

there is a poem that is waiting just for you.

- posted by Sonia, Readers’ Services

April is National Poetry Month

I know, I know the month is nearing its end, but I would be remiss if I didn’t remind everyone that poetry does matter. Everyone is in such a hurry and the world seems at times to be a terrible place that we should all take a few moments just to enjoy the succinct beauty of a poem.

One of my favorite poets wrote:

Doesn’t Every Poet Write a Poem about Unrequited Love?

The flowers
I wanted to bring to you,
wild and wet
from the pale dunes

and still smelling
of the summer night
and still holding a moment or two
of the night crickets

humble prayer,
would have been
so handsome
in your hands–

so happy–I dare to say it–
in your hands–
yet your smile
would have been nowhere

and maybe you would have tossed them
onto the ground,
or maybe, for tenderness,
you would have taken them

into your house
and given them water
and put them in a dark corner
out of reach.

In matters of love
of this kind
there are things we long to do
but must not do.

I would not want to see
your smile diminished.
And the flowers, anyway,
are happy just where they are,

on the pale dunes,
above the cricket’s humble nest,
under the blue sky
that loves us all.

Mary Oliver

From Thirst published 2006

Beacon Press

-posted by Susan-Health Reference Services

Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers

April is  National Poetry Month and May has a host of garden events, such as National Wildflower Week (May 2-9) or Garden Meditation Day on May 3.  So, what could be better than combining the two.

The New York Botanical Garden is doing just that.  From April 30 through June 13, the exhibit is Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers.  According to an article in the New York Times, “Emily Dickinson once called herself a ‘Lunatic on Bulbs’, referring to her passion for daffodils, hyacinth and other spring perennials”.  Although no trace of her original plantings survive, the Garden staff used its imagination to recreate Dickinson’s garden using plants that would have been popular in Massachusetts at the time.

The article from the Times describes the exhibit better than I can.   You can also find out more information on the New York Botanical Garden website.  (Of course, the Syosset Public Library does have museum passes to the Garden.  So take advantage of it.)

If you are interested in reading her poetry or finding out more about Emily Dickinson, you can browse our collection or use our databases.  Feel free to ask a librarian for assistance.

I’m planning on seeing the exhibit.  I hope you will as well.

-posted by Ed G., Reference Librarian

5 for Poetry

[In this new (and hopefully) regular feature, we’ll be throwing out 5 things that can be found in the collections of the Syosset Public Library, all having to do with a particular subject.  As April is Poetry Month, our first Subject is Poetry.  Please keep coming back to check for future installments of “Five for…”]

Did you know that April is National Poetry Month?  National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 to introduce more Americans to the pleasures of reading poetry. With that thought in mind we bring you “Five for Poetry”:

“Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud” by Robert Pinsky. New layers of meaning and enjoyment can be added when poetry is read aloud. Pinsky has assembled this wide ranging array of poems that especially lend themselves to being heard as well as read. There are poems you may be familiar with and some lesser known poems you will be glad to encounter.  In case you don’t feel like reading aloud yourself and can’t find someone else to read to you, the book comes with a CD of Pinsky reading some of the poems himself.

“Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman. Whitman, one of Long Island’s favorite sons, was born right next door in Huntington.  A British friend of Walt Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote of this 1855 volume of poetry: “You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass”.  One of the most thrilling reading experiences to be had is reading “Song of Myself” for the first time!

“Lyrics, 1962-1985” by Bob Dylan. Yes, he’s a songwriter, but who can deny the power of his lyrics as poetry?  Just open to any page in this book and I’m sure you’ll agree.  If you want to hear the words with the music, try “Blonde on Blonde” or “Blood on the Tracks”.

“Caedmon Poetry Collection: A Century of Poets Reading Their Work” by Various Authors. Have you ever wished that you could hear a poet read their own poems out loud to you.  Look no further, this 3 CD set contains some of the greatest poets of the twentieth century reading their own work.   Listen to T.S. Eliot read “The Wasteland” or William Butler Yeats read “ The Lake Isle of Innisfree” or Dylan Thomas read “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” or…well, you get the idea.

“Shakespeare in Love” on DVD.  William Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest poet of them all, is a young  playwright  with writer’s block in this film that offers a peek into the way that “Romeo and Juliet” might have come to be written.  Enjoy some entertaining romantic comedy as well as some of Shakepeare’s poetry in this winner of 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture.

- posted by Sonia, Readers’ Services

New display: A Celebration of Poetry and Springtime

“And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.”
-   Percy Bysshe Shelley

The snow has melted and the pansies turn their faces toward the sun. It’s time to put on the gardening gloves and cope with a blister or two. Visit the new first floor display for tips on how to achieve the garden of your dreams.  If you’re not a gardener, there are novels available that evoke the beauty of gardens without the mess.  While you’re there help celebrate National Poetry Month-chose a novel with poet protagonist, a novel set in prose, or one of the many wonderful poetry books from the collection.

May I suggest one of my favorite poems by Mary Oliver?

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Thank you to Beth Kephart, author of Undercover, for introducing Mary Oliver to me.  If you have a young adult looking for a beautiful book I highly recommend Undercover-a beautiful poetic book.

-posted by Susan, Readers’ Services