Friends,
Our poetry month celebration began ten years ago and primarily included my co-workers at Vantage Leadership Consulting, along with family and friends. Others joined along the way. It was a manageable effort but I was doing it the hard way and missing opportunities to put great poetry before the group. Enter Steph Clay and Kathrina Dubnicek of Vantage.
Steph and Kathrina suggested creating a website that would facilitate the process. Some referred to this as "a bold leap into the present." Very funny. With their help the website was built - Poetry Telos. Now I can send new poems out with a single click and members can search for poems from past years by author, title, or theme. We begin this year with 129 poems on the site and we'll add 22 this year.
In recent years the focus has been on contemporary American poets, often US Poet laureates and the poets they cite. There is no rule preventing the inclusion of other poets or favorite poems from the past. So, this year I will include poems by Robert Frost, W.B. Yeats, Langston Hughes, Frank O'Hara, e.e. cummings, and Seamus Heaney among others. We'll also read a poem by Ada Limon, the current US Poet Laureate.
Typically, I include just one poem per poet during Poetry Month. This year we'll read five by US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser and two by Seamus Heaney. We'll do this to see if reading multiple poems by a poet can orient us to their approach, amplifying their poetic voice.
Everyone is encouraged to add comments in response to the poems. This is not required - remember our motto - "No cost; no pressure." However, hearing how these poems land with people is part of the experience so please offer comments if so moved.
We begin next week on April 1. You will get one poem for each week day - 22 in all.
Rich
Looking forward to it!
A great way to start a day...