“April is the cruelest month,” begins T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The Waste Land.” Literal-minded folks living in Minnesota in January or Alabama in August might get a few chuckles from that line.

Cruelty and chuckles aside, April is also National Poetry Month (NPM). Initiated in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, “National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters.”* Today NPM “has become the largest literary celebration in the world.”

Though I don’t usually pay much attention to the ubiquitous celebrations blotting our modern calendars, particularly those aimed at some special group, I’m a fan of NPM. For one thing, verse remains a core element in Western culture, extending back to the epics of Homer and the Psalms of the Old Testament. For another, while contemporary poetry plays a diminutive role in culture today – few Americans, I would guess, could name a living poet other than an eccentric aunt or a high schooler in the throes of romantic angst – most of us recognize poems and lines from centuries past. NPM helps keep those words alive.

But it is poetry itself which primarily accounts for my support of NPM. Poems can be as lovely and exquisite as some piece of jewelry or cut glass. At their best, they can also be repositories of truth, beauty and goodness. They can make us laugh or bring us to tears, as happens in this fictious scene in “The Darkest Hour,” when Winston Churchill, himself a great lover of verse and a self-described blubberer, chokes up while reciting these lines from Thomas Macaulay’s “Horatius at the Bridge”:

Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
‘To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods….’

Google “poem a day,” sign up with one of the outfits you find offering that service, and you’ll find an effortless way to connect with verse. The Society of Classical Poets, for example, which still values meter, rhythm and rhyme, daily emails me a poem. Recently, Susan Jarvis Bryant’s sonnet for International Women’s Day, “Kitchen Sink Musings,” brought some hearty laughter:

It’s International Women’s Day today
But as a flunkee in biology
I’m told I’m far from qualified to pay
Fair tribute to such morphing majesty.
As I’m a wombed and bosomed dinosaur
With brazen XX chromosomes to boot,
I’ve lost my precious Reddy right to roar—
My female fortitude is rendered moot.
A mother’s worth and voice is obsolete
Now bristly birthing persons are the norm.
The mustached matriarchs are out to meet
Their cocky kin and party up a storm.

It’s Women’s Day and wifely duty calls—
I’ll celebrate when I have grown some balls.

For my younger readers, “Reddy” refers to Helen Reddy, a singer whose hit song, “I Am Woman,” began with “I am woman, hear me roar.”

In the last decade or so, poems written to inspire and give heart to readers have become my favorites, partly in response to the turmoil in our country, partly because of my personal need for strength and hope. More times than I can count, reading Peter Dale Wimbrow’s, “The Man in the Glass,” reminded me of the failures of my own man in the glass, encouraging me to try and follow a better path. There are several versions of Wimbrow’s poem, including this one which I’ve taken from a beautiful reading on YouTube:

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that man has to say.

For it isn’t your father or mother or wife,
Who judgment upon you must pass;
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

Some people may call you a straight-shooting chum
And call you a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you’re only a bum
If you can’t look him straight in the eye.

He’s the fellow to please, never mind all the rest,
For he’s with you clear up to the end;
And you’ve passed your most dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may face the whole world down the pathway of life
Get pats on the back when you pass,
But your final reward will be heartache and strife
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.

Poems can help us savor and appreciate life when it’s good and act as a bulwark and booster when it goes bad. Consider reading a bit of poetry this month and see whether you agree.

*Surely no poet wrote this clunky sentence. The first subordinate clause, “that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture,” displeases the ear, while the second, “that poetry matters,” fails to link to the independent clause “National Poetry Month is a special occasion.” Revamp the sentence, and we have a model of simplicity and meaning: “National Poetry month celebrates the role of poets and poetry in our culture.”

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The republication of this article is made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image Credit: Pxhere