April is National Poetry Month, and WSU Libraries is sponsoring three weeklong activities during the month to ramp up poetry mojo on the Pullman campus.
Inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture, according to the Poets.org website.
Activities, to be set up in Terrell Library’s New Books Room, include the following:
- April 6-10 theme: “Poem in Your Pocket.” Visitors can pick up poems to take home or share them with others. Take two poems for you and a friend; post a poem on Twitter (#pocketpoem); write or photocopy a poem and leave copies anonymously all over campus; and leave a copy of your favorite poem in the dullest book you can find as a treat for the next reader.
- April 13-17 theme: “Dada Poetry.” The Dada or Dadaist poem sprang from the European avant-garde art movement of the early 20th century, embracing all things nonsensical, experimental and surreal. Kits will be available for people to create their own Dada poems and post them on a display board. Emailed (wsulibrariespullman@gmail.com) or tweeted (@WSULibraries) Dada poems will be displayed too.
- April 20-24 theme: “Spine Poetry.” Spine poems are photographs of poems created from book titles on the spines of a small pile of books. Hunt for titles in the library book stacks, build their poem, take a picture, and email or tweet them.
Displays of all poems will stay up in Terrell throughout the month. For more ways to celebrate National Poetry Month, visit https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/30-ways-celebrate-national-poetry-month. Contact Lorena O’English (oenglish@wsu.edu) for details.
