By Nella Letizia, WSU Libraries
PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University Libraries will sponsor three weeklong activities to ramp up poetry mojo during April, which is National Poetry Month.
“We want to celebrate poetry as literature and art and also inspire students to interact with poetry and our libraries in a fun, creative way,” said Holly Luetkenhaus, WSU Libraries instruction librarian.
Activities, to be set up in Terrell Library’s New Books Room, include:
• April 6-10: “Poem in Your Pocket.” Visitors can pick up poems to take home or share with others. Social sciences librarian Lorena O’English suggests: taking two poems – one for your pocket and one for a friend; posting a poem on Twitter (#pocketpoem); writing or photocopying a poem and leaving copies anonymously all over campus; and leaving a copy of your favorite poem in the dullest book you can find as a treat for the next reader.
• April 13-17: “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. Email (wsulibrariespullman@gmail.com) or tweet (@WSULibraries) Dada poems to Luetkenhaus or O’English, and they will print and display them.
• April 20-24: “Spine Poetry.” Spine poems are photographs of poems created from book titles on the spines of a small pile of books. Luetkenhaus and O’English encourage visitors to hunt for titles in the library book stacks, build a poem, take a photo and send it to them by email or Twitter.
Displays of all poems will stay up in Terrell through the month. For more information and ways to celebrate National Poetry Month, visit http://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/30-ways-celebrate-national-poetry-month.
Contacts:
Holly Luetkenhaus, WSU Libraries, 509-335-4667, holly.luetkenhaus@wsu.edu
Lorena O’English, WSU Libraries, 509-335-2695, oenglish@wsu.edu
Nella Letizia, WSU Libraries public relations/communication coordinator, 509-335-6744, letizia@wsu.edu
