Celebrating our BlogiVERSEary with a Favorite Poem (and Giveaway!)

A HUGE thank you to Mary Lee, who blogs at A Year of Reading, for coining the word "blogiVERSEary" when she commented on April's post announcing our celebration and giveaway.

BlogiVERSEary is the perfect word to describe our theme this year. (Wish I'd thought of it when I created our Fifth Blogiversary logo!) Since our blog's anniversary falls during National Poetry Month, we thought it would be fitting for each of us to share a favorite poem, à la this year's Chicago Poetry Foundation's edition of the Favorite Poem Project. Esther is the one who brought the Favorite Poem Project to our attention, so I'll let her talk more about it when she posts. Meanwhile, if you're a teacher or parent, you may want to go ahead and check out their poetry lesson plans and other resources (after you're finished reading here, of course!).

To make our blogiVERSEary posts extra special, some (perhaps all) of the TeachingAuthors will share their favorite poems not only in printed form, but also via an audio or video reading. It's an opportunity for those of you we've never met to at least hear our voices. Creating an online audio or video clip is new territory for me. Unfortunately, I don't have a video camera, so I'll be sharing an audio reading, as April did.

I created a new account with SoundCloud, just for that purpose, per these instructions from the Poetry Foundation. After a couple of tense days when I couldn't get my account validated, I was finally able to upload the sound clip. If you are reading this post via email, you can go online to listen to the clip here. If you missed hearing April's reading of her favorite, give a listen to her Friday post. And while you're there, be sure to enter our blogiversary giveaway to win one of our FIVE "blogiversary book bundles," if you haven't already done so.

It took me some time to decide on just which "favorite poem" I wanted to share. The first poems I thought of were classics by Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. But I really wanted to share something a bit more child-friendly. So I went over to check out Greg Pincus's annual 30 Poets/30 Days project. Poking around on the site, I discovered the perfect poem for our blogiVERSEary: "How to Read a Poem Aloud." It happens to be written by our very own April Halprin Wayland! Greg originally posted it in his 2009 edition of 30 Poets/30 Days, on April 28, 2009, just days after our TeachingAuthors blog debuted. And now, with April's permission, I'm sharing it here, as one of my favorite poems. You can also hear me read it below.

            How to Read a Poem Aloud
                    by April Halprin Wayland

            First, read the title of the poem
            and the poet’s name.

            Be clear.

            Now completely
            disappear.

            Let each line
            shine.

            Then read it
            one more time.

            When the poem
            ends, sigh.

            Think about the poet at her desk,
            late at night, picking up her pen to write--

            and why.
                             © April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved. 


Now isn't that just the perfect poem for our blogiVERSEary?




Happy Poetry Month, and Happy Writing!
Carmela