Watermark: 53 posts from March 2006

Tomorrow is the beginning of National Poetry Month:

National Poetry Month was established by the Academy of American Poets as a month-long, national celebration of poetry. The concept was to increase the attention paid-by individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our poetic heritage, and to poetry books and magazines. In the end, we hoped to achieve an increase in the visibility, presence, and accessibility of poetry in our culture. National Poetry Month has been successful beyond all anticipation and has grown over the years into the largest literary celebration in the world.

This event is also celebrated by the League of Canadian Poets, and famously disdained by Charles Bernstein and others. You can participate in the activites in a variety of ways:

get a Poem-a-Day in your email from poets.org
get a Poem a Day for April from the Knopf Poetry Center [via Hi Spirits]
get a Poem a Day from writers in the schools: send a blank email to mail@writersintheschools.org [via Big Window ]
WRITE a poem a day, or two. Reen challenges: Test your poetic mettle against the horrible regularity of the turn of time. Let me know if you'll be participating, and your name will live in glory in the "NaPoWriMo" section of my sidebar . . . Drop me a line at reenhead-at-gmail-dot-com to join the merry crew . . . [via Dumbfoundry]

So what has this to do with cats, you ask? Well, as Aloysius tells us in Great Feline Authors: the indigestible furball of the poem:

In the annals of feline literature, few members of my species have actually gotten credit for their own work. Henry Beard, who put together this anthology [Poetry for Cats] recognizes that felines' literary accomplishments stretch back for centuries; the poems are not just for cats, but by cats.

Just a quick search for poetry + cats at Powell's results in 43 matches. Try Google and:

[Several were omitted from this list due to popups and/or obnoxious ads.]

Then we have the individual poems and poets: