Photo Credit: Photo from shared post on Facebook by The Publicist
National Poetry Month, April 2023
"Initiated in April 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month is currently the largest world-wide literary celebration. "
April is Poetry month and the internet wont let us forget., and Im happy
Poetry deserves to be celebrated
Not one to be poetic in anyway , but I appreciate the renderings of others
Spoken word which is a more radical form of poetry is one of my favorite forms of expression
On the island we have an amazing yearly competition that is looked forward to eargly as our young people come out all hyped to do battle of the spoken word
From serious topics from Questioning the authencity of Corvid 19, to throwing banter for the polictians , to opinions on youth , music or comical satire on why sandals shouldnt occupy space in our sister isles.
As a child at secondary school I dabbled in writing poetry a lot ,one of my fav was a piece I wrote called The Snake ,it was constructed, one of the few things my dad helped me with ,but the constant repetition in order to be able to say it by heart , caused that reptile to slidder up the wall into my dreams for quite a while
I took the opportunity to scan through a few of the peoms highlighted and the one below is certainly one of my favorites from the young brilliant Amanda Gorman
Quoted from a publication in The new York Times
Poem by Amanda Gorman
Its deep , aught provoking , a reality for so many ,yet so hopeful
EVERYTHING HURTS
Everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed and strange,
Minds made muddied and mute
.We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.
And yet none of it is new;
We knew it as home,As horror,As heritage.
Even our children Cannot be children,Cannot be.
Everything hurts.
It’s a hard time to be alive,
And even harder to stay that way.
We’re burdened to live out these days,
While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.
This alarm is how we know
We must be altered —That we must differ or die,
That we must triumph or try.
Thus while hate cannot be terminated,
It can be transformed
Into a love that lets us live.
May we not just grieve, but give:
May we not just ache, but act;
May our signed right to bear arms
Never blind our sight from shared harm;
May we choose our children over chaos.
May another innocent never be lost.
Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.
Amanda Gorman is a poet and the author of “The Hill We Climb,” “Call Us What We Carry” and “Change Sings.”
Reposted with Credit :The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
