Ta-dah…the month of flowers and showers begins and so does National Poetry Month.

Several of my favorite bloggers are doing special events during the month.

Greg Pincus at Gotta Book is hosting 30 Poets 30 Days. I am really looking forward to receiving his blog everyday because many (maybe all?) of the poets are sharing new original work. So cool.

Greg also posted yesterday that he is starting a new poetry project called Poetry: Spread the Word. Basically, Greg loves poetry and he wants to make sure it gets out in the world to kids, adults and schools. By supporting this project, you can help Greg do 40 school visits (in person or Skype) and take the fundraising burden off schools. He will also post 100 new poems on his blog from May 2011 to April 2012. Fantastic.

My friend Liz Scanlon is doing a haibun a day for the month of April. Says Liz, “A haibun is the practice of complementing one’s haiku with a little prose. A little commentary, or journalling, to frame or extend the idea of the haiku. Basho created the haibun style as he needed a way to add a little narrative to his imagistic revelations. Sometimes I need that, too.” She also has a couple of links to sites where you can get a pom a day emailed to you in April. Yes!

Jama Rattigan’s blog is the only blog I read that makes my stomach growl. Seriously. She is hosting her second annual Poetry Potluck featuring poetry and recipes side by side. Yum.

This just in from fellow blogger E. Kristin Anderson: “for the entire month of April, you will see nothing but poetry features here at this blog.  In fact, if everything goes to plan, every single day with have some sort of features — a guest blog, an interview, a poem, a Q&A, a review — from someone in poetry.”

Travis Jonker at 100 Scope Notes is kicking off National Poetry Month by posting a gallery of Book Spine poems. I have to say these are fun little gems to create. Personally, I think poetry is the most brilliant form of writing and I am often intimidated by it. (Really, I think of poets as the god and goddesses of words, able to distill beauty into 17 syllables) When I read Travis’s idea, I was inspired and pulled several books off my shelf to create this poem. Amazing.

Fun, eh?

I don’t have a National Poetry Month idea or project in mind for myself but I will participate here with an occasional haiku or book spine poem or by linking to a poem that stunned me with its beauty or humor or honesty. That’s how awesome poetry can be. I hope you will participate in National Poetry Month by delighting in words and images and how they come alive in poetry and nudge us to see things anew.