It’s National Poetry Month! Let’s celebrate poetry!

Poetry has been a part of my life since I was a little girl. One of my earliest memories related to poetry is of a large children’s book I had that was filled with African-American poetry and beautiful illustrations. (Oh my goodness, I found it! This is the book! *tears*)

I was captivated by the poem “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes:

So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

In high school, we recited Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” in drama class:

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.   
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.   
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,   
The bend of my hair,   
the palm of my hand,   
The need for my care.   
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

I discovered Nikki Giovanni and Gwendolyn Brooks and loved reading their work. Their poems are alive! In college I found June Jordan’s poetry and read her essays in Some of Us Did Not Die, marveling at her strength of voice and clarity of vision.

Somewhere in the early years of my adulthood I discovered “Guest House” by Rumi, and this poem has been a companion on my journey since then, reminding me, “This being human is a guest house. / Every morning a new arrival.” And,

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Along the way I discovered a mirror of my own love of the natural world in the poetry of Mary Oliver. Though, I think the first poem of hers that I ever read was “The Journey,” a blessing and challenge toward claiming freedom and self-love. It will forever be one of my favorites because of how it spoke to me when I needed its medicine.

The work of Lucille Clifton was one of my best poetry discoveries. She was a seer and a prophet, a fierce lover of her people, and she remains one of the jewels of American poetry. The poem “won’t you celebrate with me” was the first poem of hers I ever read:

won't you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?

I had the opportunity to recite this poem at a public gathering once. I didn’t realize the true power in the poem until that moment when I was reciting it before an audience as if it were my own story. That was when I realized that it was; it’s the story of many Black women.

Lucille Clifton said, “Poetry is the human heart speaking.” That’s what first drew me to poetry and what eventually led me to start writing poetry myself. I began writing poems in the privacy of my journals, just for myself, as a way to express my inner life, process emotions, and talk to God. But that journey is a long story and a post for another day!  

These days I’m still discovering poetry I love. I’ll be sharing some current favorites in my next post, so stay tuned! Happy National Poetry Month!