April 1 2011–it is the start of National Poetry Month in many countries, Canada and United States included–no fool!
For 30 days, poetry will be appearing everywhere! Hear it. Sing it. Draw it. Celebrate poetry and poets!
As a starting point, I would like to share a powerful poem, written by American poet, Frank O’Hara.
By chance, I discovered his work through a show which many of you might have seen–Mad Men. This show, in the news this week, due to some production issues, may not return until 2012; however, thanks to YouTube, there are a few key scenes available to view.
In Mad Men, a time capsule of the late 50s, now well into the 60s, great efforts have been taken to add historically accurate elements to the show along with a bit of a soap opera-like plot about the lives of the Madison Avenue Ad Executives.
In the midst of a re-created Cold War era, one episode, ended with the main character, Don Draper, reading “Mayakovsky” a poem from O’Hara’s Meditations in an Emergency. To me, it seemed like a haunting few lines and it stayed with me, even prompted me to do a bit of research about this poet! Here is the brief clip from Mad Men. Maybe you will find it haunting too–poetry can be that way!
Here’s to a great Poetry Month 2011!
PM27's Blog 
Fantastic, Sheila!
What topics are you writing about?
Today in my other blog, I shared some photos of corn kernels that inspire poetry to me. Poetry Kernels I called them http://pmpoetwriter.blogspot.com/.
Let me know how the poet writing is going as the days go by!
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Patricia,
You have inspired me to be “A Mad Poet”. I plan on writing a poem every day this month. So far I have 3 done.
I use to play poetry games with my kids when they were young. We would pick a subject and write a poem about it. It was lots of fun.
Thanks Patricia, sometimes I get so stuck in the techy stuff that I don’t create. Writing poetry is a fun create for me.
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