Happy Poetry Month!

April is National Poetry Month, and this year marks the first I really, truly feel like I'm putting my best foot forward and getting involved in the whole Event Thing. I'll be writing up an article for my freelance gig at A Place for Mom on seniors, poetry, and how our local poetry center members are helping "spread the word" (pun intended). And I've written a guest post for a wonderful daily series of posts over at the blog Miss Print, where I'm in illustrious company such as Terra McVoy (who wrote today's post), Rachel Hartman (whose post goes up tomorrow), Kelly Jensen, Justina Chen, Sarah Beth Durst, Elizabeth Wein, Nova Ren Suma, and a host of other bloggers and writers.

The series is called Poetically Speaking, and my post is scheduled for next Tuesday, April 7th. I wrote about my experiences as a member of our poetry center, helping to get it started as an organization, and slowly getting more involved with poetry in the community--including giving a poetry workshop to some middle school girls last month. (If you want to find out what the CHUPACABRA has to do with poetry, you'll have to read my post and find out...)

For an introduction to the series, and the full schedule, go check out this roundup on Miss Print, and don't miss the daily update! Today, Terra McVoy talks about one of my longtime favorite poets, Emily Dickinson:

"...for me, Emily’s life was a testament to the truth: that it’s the work that matters, and nothing else. Being a serious writer who is taken seriously means dedicating your life to shaping your writing into its highest, purest, most powerfully beautiful form, and all else is distraction."

More here.