When people think of poetry, their minds often rest with the greats whose penmanship has outlasted even their very lives. 

Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau; just to name a few of some of the most recognizable names in American poetry and literature. These people and more have certainly set the bar for the genre as high as it gets.  

But this April is once again national poetry month — it is for every poet, even those who cannot find the time to write all of their poems down on paper. This month is for all the feelers, the thinkers, the writers, the dreamers, and the lovers. 

Even if the words put down on paper do not match the majesty of the muses crafted by wordsmiths of old, be proud of the work that is generated from your experience and your diction. 

Poetry is so much more than what is written down on paper. It is the life that is experienced in the most romantic sense. It is seeing the world through a lens of a beautiful suffering, in a way.

The annual celebration of the genre was launched by the Academy of American Poets in April of 1996, with the intent to honor poets’ integrality in our national culture.

Coming up this month is the second-annual Youth Poetry Festival put on by 2022-2023 Sullivan County Poet Laureate Dr. Sharon Kennedy-Nolle and the Western Sullivan Public Library system. The event will take place on the 15th at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts – where students from schools around the county will participate in the reading and sharing of original poetry with their peers.

Poetry is a form of communication for all of us. Sometimes what cannot be shared with photos and other narratives can only be shared with lines and stanzas.

All benefit from this; Professional and amateur. Young and old. Experienced and inexperienced.

It is simply a transfer of emotion via written word, and that is a power we can all utilize and share as we celebrate poetry for the next four weeks.