Vibrant Village ™

A line from T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” describes April “as the cruelest month,” but the Academy of American Poets has tried to gentle April’s reputation by designating it as National Poetry Month.

In 1996 the Academy ushered in a national celebration of poetry to increase the accessibility to and appreciation of poetry in our country. With this initiative, the Academy has hoped to emphasize our nation’s legacy of extraordinary poetry, as well as drawing attention to the exciting poetry that thrives in contemporary America.

Poetry may never rival video entertainment, but with increased public exposure, perhaps we can hope for a population that appreciates the lyrics of popular music as a form of poetry and even texts messages in rhyme!

Poetry and Poets in Beaufort

In the spirit of taming April and celebrating National Poetry Month, our local library here in Beaufort has organized wonderful activities for seasoned poets and new writers alike.

On April 14, it is sponsoring Peter Makuck, a distinguished professor of American Literature and the founder/editor of Tar River Poetry who will read poetry and facilitate a workshop on writing poetry that focuses on imagery and the process of revision. The reading and workshop will be at the History Place in Morehead City. If interested, please call the library in Beaufort for details (252-728-2050).

Glenis Redmond, spoken word performer

The library is also hosting Glenis Redmond, a spoken word performer whose energy, passion, and creativity help her win budding poets as she travels the country and the globe entertaining and working with local schools. Library patrons can enjoy her “up close and personal” during the day on April 23 at our restored Beaufort train depot, a small venue that engenders a connection between performers and audiences.  People have a second opportunity to enjoy Ms. Redmond's work at an evening performance at the local community college. Again, please call the library for details.

In house, our Library’s Children’s department is working its own magic with the nearby Tiller School students who come to the library twice a month. The librarians will provide activities for students to write poetry that reflects their interests and “take on” what is important in their world. The completed poems will be illustrated and displayed so adult patrons can enjoy the wisdom and humor that seems to just “leak” out of the minds of children who still love to listen to, read, or write a good poem.

And most fun for the librarians is the bulletin board that invites patrons to put their favorite poem on a paper pocket and add it to those already posted on the Poetry Month bulletin board. So if you happen by the Carteret County Public Library in Beaufort, North Carolina during April, come in and get in touch with your “inner poet,” ponder one of life’s philosophical questions, experience the world as a metaphor, or just laugh with a poem.

Children Love Poetry

My love of poetry began as a toddler when my father read me the poem Wynken, Blynken, and Nod about sailing among the stars in a wooden shoe.

In high school I was fortunate enough to have English teachers who valued poetry and infused their classes with excitement for using words creatively.

In college I fell in love with TS Elliot and Ferlinghetti and began to save my most important memories and connections with the universe in my own poetry.

As a teacher I have been awed by the intuitive love students from kindergarten to college have for poetry regardless of what they say or others say about having to read poems. My students seemed to thrive on reading about life and the human condition in poems that created “thought videos” in their heads.

I taught third grade in a Raleigh elementary school, and for five years my students wrote poetry and sponsored a poetry reading at a local coffee shop. Not only parents, but many of the neighborhood locals looked forward to the April evening when the busy coffee shop opened its doors to spring and the “written blooms” offered by bashful third graders who stepped up to a microphone and shared their humor, insight, hopes, and dreams with adults who leaned forward to catch every word.

A resource I used in teaching poetry to third graders described a poem as words that have been sent through a trash compactor so that all the trash has been reduced and only the essential words are left so the reader can synthesize her reality with that of the poet to create new meaning.

I love that description and believe my joy in writing poetry comes from finding just the right word, image, metaphor, or phrase to open my world to reader and foster an intimate connection between us.

To focus on poetry and remind us of how we appreciated childhood finger plays, Dr. Seuss books, and jump rope chants, the Academy of American Poets provides posters, curriculum for schools, activities for libraries, poetry read-a-thons, poem flows for iPhones, and my personal favorite: Poem in Your Pocket Day. Imagine walking into the grocery store or your office and pulling out your favorite poem to share with a fellow shopper or co-worker. I know that is a scary thought, but hey, who knows what might happen?

For me poetry is a year round passion

The photographs I take tell you what's been important to me throughout my life,  but the poems I write better share who I really am.

Oh, and be patient with me because I can’t resist sharing a poem with you to celebrate April:

Getting Bees in April

In a pasture edged
in tender green spring trees
raining white and pink petals
on caramel colored cows
who deem us insignificant,
we wait for bees.

The sun spreads across rolling fields
like melted butter,
shimmers through
new leaves on sapling oaks,
warming faces.
We wait impatiently.

A white pickup
pulling a trailer stacked
with  weathered wooden squares,
muted grays, whites strapped tight,
dips over the hill.
The air is thickened
with the hum of bees
who missed their ride,
who were not sealed in the hives
forty miles back down the road,
who clung at highway speeds
to the juniper boxes
full of bees still working.

The truck freezes at the fence;
the hitchhikers rise in the air
like dust in a breeze,
circling the boxes, searching,
needing to join their hive
to do what instinct insists.

Their faith
astounds me.

--Leslie McCombs-Porter

For more information

• For more about the Carteret County Public Library’s activities for National Poetry Month, please call the library at 252-278-2050.
• The Academy of American Poets' plans and resources for National Poetry Month (or Google 'National Poetry Month').
• The poem Wynken, Blynken, and Nod
• The Wikipedia page about the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Les grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, the child of two university professors. With a master's degree in English-Composition and Rhetoric and teaching credentials for early childhood – high school as well as media specialist, Les has taught at university and high school. Now she divides her time as a poet, writer, avid reader, librarian, and photographer. She lives in down east North Carolina with her husband, a small armada of boats in various states of disrepair, two standard poodles, and a white cat.