I Loathe Poetry

April Fool's.

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Here's the poetry news for April -- not the cruellest month at all, but a month to mix memory and desire:

Check out the April Poem-a-Day challenge at Poetic Asides. The challenge is not to read or share a poem a day, but to write one.

Here is today's first challenge, which is to write "an origin poem."

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Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Gregory at Gotta Book is posting 30 Poets in 30 Days (and be sure to check out all the links to that post, as they include lots of other happenings for National Poetry Month.) Gregory writes:

Every day in April, I'll be posting a previously unpublished poem by a different poet.

And the list is impressive:

Arnold Adoff, Jaime Adoff, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Douglas Florian, Betsy Franco, Kristine O'Connell George, Charles Ghigna, Nikki Giovanni, Joan Bransfield Graham, Nikki Grimes, Avis Harley, Mary Ann Hoberman, Lee Bennett Hopkins, X. J. Kennedy, Bruce Lansky, Julie Larios, J. Patrick Lewis, Pat Mora, Kenn Nesbitt, Linda Sue Park, Ann Whitford Paul, Gregory K. Pincus, Jack Prelutsky, Adam Rex, Jon Scieszka, Joyce Sidman, Marilyn Singer, April Halprin Wayland, Janet Wong, and Jane Yolen.

Here's today's entry, a poem by Jack Prelutsky.

H/t to Melissa Wiley, and lots of others in the Kidlitosphere (a word Melissa coined, by the way!)

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More on National Poetry Month here (re. the Academy of American Poets) and here (at Poets.org, re. the Free Verse Project.)