National Poetry Month, which takes place each April, is a celebration of poetry introduced in 1996 and organized by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. While this may sound like a ‘ dry as dust’ sort of celebration, it encourages people to explore and enjoy the written and spoken word. Poetry can be intensely personal, silly or profound. It can be set in measured stanzas and rhyme or wander all over the page. It sings to us , comforts us and sometimes scolds or makes us laugh. In honor of National Poetry Month I am sharing the works of two poets that embody the differences , e. e. cummings , who wanders about the page and Maine’s own Edna St C Vincent Millay, who draws a picture of the view from the top of the Camden Hills that embodies our fair state in a more traditional format.
e. e. Cummings
- IN Just-
- spring when the world is mud-
- luscious the little
- lame baloonman
- whistles far and wee
- and eddieandbill come
- running from marbles and
- piracies and it's
- spring
- when the world is puddle-wonderful
- the queer
- old baloonman whistles
- far and wee
- and bettyandisbel come dancing
- from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
- it's
- spring
- and
- the
- goat-footed
- baloonMan whistles
- far
- and
- wee
- ( In Just was originally published in The Dial Volume LXVIII, Number 5 , in May 1920.
Renascence (verse one)
All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood; I turned and looked another way, And saw three islands in a bay. So with my eyes I traced the line Of the horizon, thin and fine, Straight around till I was come Back to where I’d started from; And all I saw from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood.