Gearing up for National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month and I'm dusting off my bookshelf. I want to see how many poetry collections I can read this month. The problem, well, depending on your perspective on whether a person can actually have too many books or not, is that I buy more than I read. I know I'm not the only one who's got books on the shelf waiting for some eyes to run across their pages while concurrently perusing shelves in the bookstore. I don't believe in having too many books but I do believe in reading the ones I have.

So I'm pulling the books off of my shelf and giving myself two days to read each one. Some of them, I've started and haven't finished. Others I haven't begun at all. But I want to gift myself reading each one from start to finish. That means my goal for the month is to finish fifteen poetry collections.

What do you have sitting on your shelf that you haven't picked up yet? Here's what my reading list looks like for April!

1. Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith

2. Vulnerable AF by Tarriona "Tank" Ball

3. Chrome Valley by Mahogany L. Browne

4. Primitive: the Art and Life of Horace H. Pippen by Janice N. Harrington

5. We Seek Asylum by Gustavo Adolfo Aybar

6. A Conjuring of Dandelions by A.L. Garcia

7. No Dictionary of a Living Tongue by Duriel E. Harris

8. Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

9. 2000 Blacks by Ajibola Tolase

10. Hip Logic by Terrance Hayes

11. The Absurd Man by Major Jackson

12. Pansy by Andrea Gibson

13. Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery by Pamela Sneed

14. You Don't Have to Go to Mars for Love by Yona Harvey

15. Gumbo Ya Ya by Aurielle Marie

April is also the month when poets challenge themselves to write a poem every day with the goal of having 30 poem drafts by the month's end. I've learned that while I value what can come out of a challenge like that from past experience, I'll be happy to write fifteen drafts, one poem for every book I finish. I always admire folks who take on the Sealey Challenge started by Nicole Sealey. During the month of August folks read a book of poems per day. I've tried to do it myself but I never really get the thing going fully and maybe this can be my warm up to that while I also write new poems.

Stay tuned for my thoughts and progress on my reading. I'd love to hear from you if you join in on the reading, if you have some of the same books on your shelf or have recommendations! Here's to reading more poems, writing more poems and the inspiration I'm sure will come from the journey!

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