April 17, 2013 - Poetry and the Creative Mind Day

Aprilnis National Poetry Month in the U.S., and tonight various Hollywoodnstars, artists, scholars, and poets will get together to celebratenpoetry and raise money to sponsor poets and the publication ofnpoetry.
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nReadnabout this event at the official website.

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Toncelebrate poetry in your own neck of the woods, read your favorite poems,nwrite poems, and browse the internet for more poems to enjoy.

Herenare some links to get you started:

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nShel Silversteinnwrites always-popular humorous verse! (Another Silverstein sitenhere.)

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nJack Prelutsky also writes humorousnpoems.

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nInlove this poem:

nThenHorses

nbynTednHughes

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Inclimbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, anfrost-making stillness,

Not a leaf, not a bird –
A worldncast in frost. I came out above the wood

Where my breath leftntortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were drainingnthe darkness

Till the moorline – blackening dregs of thenbrightening grey –
Halved the sky ahead. And I saw thenhorses:

Huge in the dense grey – ten togethern-
Megalith-still. They breathed, making no move,

Withndraped manes and tilted hind-hooves,
Making no sound.
Inpassed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silentnfragments
Of a grey silent world.

I listened in emptinessnon the moor-ridge.
The curlew’s tear turned its edge on thensilence.

Slowly detail leafed from the darkness. Then thensun
Orange, red, red erupted

Silently, and splitting to itsncore tore and flung cloud,
Shook the gulf open, showed blue,

Andnthe big planets hanging –
I turned
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nStumblingnin the fever of a dream, down towards
The dark woods, from thenkindling tops,

And came to the horses.
There, still theynstood,
But now steaming and glistening under the flow ofnlight,

Their draped stone manes, their tiltednhind-hooves
Stirring under a thaw while all around them

Thenfrost showed its fires. But still they made no sound.
Not onensnorted or stamped,

Their hung heads patient as thenhorizons,
High over valleys in the red levelling rays –

Inndin of crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,
May Instill meet my memory in so lonely a place

Betweennthe streams and the red clouds, hearing the curlews,
Hearingnthe horizons endure.

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