National Poetry Month

As Cindy pointed out earlier this week, April is National Poetry Month. A lot of people think of Robert Frost or Shakespear when they think of poetry; however, poetry has certainly evolved over the last few decades, and the new "post modern" poetry sounds nothing like the verse of our grandparents (not that the metered verse of yesteryear doesn't have it's time and place.

So I thought I would share some links from a few more contemporary poets. Please be advised that the content on the websites I am linking to is in no way censored, just like the books we carry here in the library.

Slam Poetry is a genre of performance poetry that is delivered in a competitive setting. The performances are high energy and often include the use of props or music. These poems breathe more life off the page through the mouth of the poet than they do on the page in ink. Here are a few of my favorites:

Saul Williams is a well known and wonderfully talented slam poet. He starred in the movie Slam and has appeared on shows such as Def Jam's Poetry on HBO. Click here to visit his website, where you can hear samples of his work, watch videos and more!

Buddy Wakefield is another amazing poet whose performance leaves you breathless with goosebumps (I know from experience :-) he is amazing.) Click here for his website full of fun video and audio.

Jeffrey McDaniel is another wonderful performance poet, and his poems are just as tasty to read as they are to hear. Click here for his myspace page.

A whole world of poetry journals are availabe to any poetry afficianado, such as Ploughshares, The Columbia Poetry Review and The Prairie Schooner, which is published by UNL with some copies here at the library available for checkout (inquire at the desk.)

We also have a number of good poetry books available for checkout from contemporary poets such as Billy Collins, Alice Walker and Nebraska poet Ted Kooser who recently served as the United State Poet Laureate.

So whether you browse the above wesites or stop in and checkout a poetry book, I encourage you to get your poem on this April in honor of National Poetry Month!