Being Grateful for National Poetry Month, April 2024

It’s Wednesday, May 1, 2024, and I’m looking back over the past month, a.k.a. “National Poetry Month” and feeling blessed to have experienced an abundance of good fortune during that month. April is also known as a special time for other good causes. It’s Stress Awareness Month, Earth Month, Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness Month, and many other observances. You might be surprised to know that April contains more than thirty days, when you start adding up days like Earth Day, Arbor Day, World Autism Acceptance Day, World Malaria Day, Independent Bookstore Day, et cetera.

Thanks to poet, retired physician, and naturalist Bill Griffin, Earth Month/Earth Day and poetry crossed orbits in Bill’s series of “Verse and Image” newsletters distributed to anyone who asks to be put on his mailing list. He sends out V&I all year long, but the April series was specially curated to highlight ecopoetry, stunning photos of the natural world, and Bill’s own microessays on the relationships between humans and nature. Visit  V E R S E ❦ I M A G E | With every ‘being’ is the potential for ‘becoming’. (griffinpoetry.com).

I’m thankful for the Spring Issue of The Main Street Rag featuring Jessica Hylton’s interview with me about my newest book, Letters to Karen Carpenter and Other Poems. Thanks to Jessica for the excellent article, and thanks to Editor Scott Douglass for running the article along with three of my poems and two of my reviews. No equivalent assault on my modesty has ever occurred. My head is in the clouds, and I like it up here, but know that I must come down to earth very soon. Visit Main Street Rag (mainstreetragbookstore.com).

Thanks to editor Cindy Rosmus of Yellow Mama for featuring three of my poems in Issue #103: “Frown,” “Why Is the Sky Cerulean?” and “Atlas Yearns for Retirement.” Visit Yellow Mama (tripod.com).

Thanks to editor Luke Whisnant of Tar River Poetry for accepting “Continental Divide” for the Fall 2024 issue of TRP.

Thanks to judge Eddie Vega for selecting my poem “This is not the scenic side” as winner of the Mary Ruffin Poole American Heritage Award. The poem will appear in the 2024 edition of Pinesong, the awards anthology of the North Carolina Poetry Society.

Thanks to Dr. Daniel Cross Turner, Head of Programming and Outreach, Georgetown County Library, for the privilege of appearing as the featured poet in the Litchfield Tea and Poetry Series on April 11.

Thanks to the No Rhyme Nor Reason Poetry Book Club operating under the auspices of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, NC, and ably led by Adam Winkel and Brian Lamkin. I participate monthly by Zoom and appreciate the stimulating discussions of books specially selected for their quality and cultural relevance.

Thanks to M. Judson Booksellers, the Poetry Society of South Carolina, Upstate Poets, and the Cherokee County Library for multiple opportunities to read and hear poetry in or near Greenville, SC, during National Poetry Month.

I’m grateful to poets who lifted me up with their marvelous poetry collections, read during National Poetry Month: Kate Partridge, José Olivarez, Karen Luke Jackson, and Neil Shepherd.

Thanks to all who are reading this. Your fellowship and support are a treasure.

Richard Allen Taylor

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