National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. Do you read poetry? Do you write it? Does the very word frighten you?

I used to be an avid poetry reader, and I have the collection to prove it. I still enjoy it when my mom-of-a-toddler brain emerges from the fog.

My first favorite poet was Emily Dickinson. I started reading her when I was around seven because we shared first names.

I Felt a Funeral in My Brain
by Emily Dickinson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –