Reading up a storm. This bookmark-finishing style will be discussed in the May Needlework Nutshell. Subscription box in the sidebar.

April is National Poetry Month. This month-long celebration was established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. The Academy hosts a Web site, poets.org, loaded with resources for reading, writing, sharing, and enjoying poetry.

While the Web site offers 30 Ways to Celebrate, I’m going to highlight one here: Poem in Your Pocket Day. The idea is simple: select a poem you love and carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, friends, and kids on April 30, 2009. I may have no one but the hares and magpies to show my poem to on April 30, but I’ll have one in my pocket!

Another celebration is taking place over at the GottaBook blog where Gregory K. is hosting Thirty Poets / Thirty Days, showcasing a previously unpublished poem by a different poet every day.

For some time, I’ve been contemplating the mixing and melding of poetry and needlework. Embroidery, it seems to me, is the poetry of textile arts. I’ve gone so far as to imagine a sort of poetic band sampler where bands of similar techniques (pulled thread stitches, crossed stitches, knotted stitches) or colors (shades of red, shades of blue) “rhyme” and/or have a certain rhythm, and the sampler’s layout is, say, a sonnet. It’s quite lovely in my head!

We’ll see how far I get with that idea. In the meantime, I’m taking a cue from Gregory K. and posting a previously unpublished poem of my own to celebrate National Poetry Month.

Fireweed

Flaming leaves spring up;
ignite the earth.
Hot pink blossoms
blaze in the summer sun,
burn up the stalk,
and extinguish.
Turning to smoky puffs,
they drift on the autumn breeze,
kindling thoughts of winter.