The month of April is National Poetry Month, an occasion created by the Academy of American Poets. The mission of this month is to raise awareness about the importance of poetry in American culture by encouraging the public to read or write a poem.
A few of Stevenson’s faculty members were willing to take the opportunity to participate in National Poetry Month by sharing their favorite poems.
Stephanie Verni, professor of business communication, said she would love to participate by sharing an original poem she published in 2018 called “Cracking A Sonnet.”
Forlorn, the faltering heart has no reasonto fill you with false hope and pay mind to your sanity;whether there is heat or cold, it disregards season,and pays no attention to matters of formality.It breaks nonetheless whether anyone can hearthe silent scream, the muted moan—inside, aching, but on the outside appearscalm; the whisper of a desperate groan.Why is it a breaking heart makes no noise?Unfathomable, really, that the ear can’t detectthe sinking, shattering, cracking, crippling lack of joy;it used to be intact and you never expectthat a breakage like this won’t repair with glueand that the red of the sunset has lost its hue.
Laura Smith, chair of the English department at Stevenson, says her favorite poem is “Instructions on not giving up” by Ada Limon:
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
Chip Rouse, the faculty advisor of The Villager, shared one of her favorite poems, “Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manley Hopkins:To a young child
Margaret, are you grieving?Over Golden grove unleaving?Leaves like the things of man, youWith your fresh thoughts care for, can you?Ah! as the heart grows olderIt will come to such sights colderBy and by, nor spare a sighThough worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;And yet you will weep and know why.Now no matter, child, the name:Sorrow’s springs are the same.Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressedWhat heart heard of; ghost guessed:It is the blight man was born for,It is Margaret you mourn for.
Rouse explained that she loves this poem by the Jesuit poet for the ways in which the writer looks at the innocence of the young contrasted with aging. In the end, it seems, we all mourn the sadness of loss that comes with aging.
Tess Gillis, director of Student Support and Success at Stevenson, says her favorite poem is “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, originally published in 1916. A familiar poem poem among those who love poetry, “The Toad Not Taken” plays a significant role in American culture.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.
The Academy of American Poets website notes, “Now, as we face an unprecedented circumstance, National Poetry Month has taken on new meaning and importance. More and more people are turning to poetry at this moment, because poetry and inspiring language can help bring solace and needed strength.”
Interested readers can sign for for Poem-a-Day, the original daily digital poetry series with over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year.
Do you have a favorite poem? Have you written something of which you are proud? Feel free to share it for publication at [email protected].