Today marks the start of National Poetry Month, and I’m planning to start it off the way I do every April: by reading T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” The poem is like an old friend I enjoy visiting with periodically, and the reading is both a comforting ritual and a rite and harbinger of spring. I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately, and occasionally writing a verse or two, which is entirely new to me. So National Poetry Month has extra meaning for me this year, and I’m going to try to pay attention all month. While I’m not certain exactly where that will take me, I’m hoping perhaps to finish at least a couple of poems I’ve been working on, and read a whole lot more. I want to say I’ll write something here touching on, or maybe inspired by, poetry every day, but that might be overly ambitious. We shall see.

For now, to start off the month, let me share some of the poetry I’m currently reading and re-reading:

• The Flame, by Leonard Cohen—Published posthumously, this is a collection of never-before published poems, lyrics from several of his last albums, and excerpts from his notebooks, illustrated with Cohen’s own drawings. By turns dark and sad, celebratory, spiritual, sensual, and both reverent and irreverent, I hang on the words. I’ve listened to it twice on audiobook and am finishing up reading it for myself, and I can’t get enough. I’ll go back to this one over and over.
• Citizen Illegal, by José Olivarez—I read this last year and liked it enough to review it for Escape Into Life. My book club read and discussed it last month, and I can honestly say that every person there was glad they read it. (Watch me embrace the gender-neutral use of the pronoun “they.”) In fact, it was so well-received that the group changed up plans and decided to read another book of poetry for our April meeting. That’s If They Come for Us, by Fatimah Ashgar, so stay tuned for a possible review of that once I’ve read it (for National Poetry Month, hooray!).
• Two related anthologies, The BreakBeat Poets and Black Girl Magic—Both of these feature works by poets I already enjoy and respect (see for example José Olivarez, above) and also are opening my eyes and mind to new writers.
• The Crown Ain’t Worth Much, by Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib—A magical find in the newly expanded poetry section of my local bookstore, the clerk told me as I was paying for it that it is his current favorite book of poetry, and I can believe it. These poems are vibrant, driving, urgent, and impel me to live life to its fullest.

I would recommend every single one of these poetry books to anyone looking to explore a new writer for National Poetry Month, or for any other reason. So happy poetry month; I hope this won’t be my only post in honor of poetry this April.

Care to join me in reading “The Waste Land” today?