National Poetry Month, which takes place each April, is a celebration of poetry as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.

National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers and poets celebrating poetry's vital place in our culture.

How Can I Participate?

• Come in and check out a poetry book to take home and enjoy – we have poetry for adults, for children, for teens, and everyone in between!
• Pick up a poem in preparation for Poem in Your Pocket Day (April 26, 2018). Choose a poem that inspires you and carry it with you to keep and reread or take one to pass on. You never know when a poem will come in handy.
• Tweet a haiku to the Sonoma County Library official twitter. Participants are invited to tweet a family-friendly haiku about reading and must tag @sonomacolibrary and have their submission(s) shared on the library's feed on Facebook.

Learn More

Follow these links to learn more about poetry and poetry month:

• Academy of American Poets
• The Poetry Foundation
• Poem Hunter
• The Poetry Society of America
• Poetry 180
• The Poetry Archive

Read More

Read more about it at the Library (poetry is classified 811 on the shelf):

• Frost, Robert. 1994. Poetry for Young People
• Collins, Billy. 2005. The Trouble with Poetry
• 2001. Poetry Speaks: Hear Great Poets Read Their Work, from Tennyson to Plath
• Neruda, Pablo. 2005. The Poetry of Pablo Neruda
• 2000. American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Vol. 2, E. E. Cummings to May Swenson
• Petras, Kathryn & Ross. 2012. The Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry: Timeless Poems by Snooki, John Boehner, Kanye West, and Other Well-versed Celebrities