NATIONAL POETRY MONTH IS HERE!

Woohoo! It's April! Which means National Poetry Month is finally here!!

For some quick links to blogosphere celebrations, see the side bar. For an amazing, more complete resource page, visit Laura Evans at teachpoetry.k12.com. So much to do!

Here, I'm celebrating by having a GIVEAWAY!

Yep. Every Friday this month I will share one of my most favorite poems of all time... and give away one of my most favorite anthologies of all time. (What, you say? Today's not Friday? Never fear, I am not completely off my rocker. Yet. I've just been SO EXCITED, I didn't think it would hurt to get a jumpstart.)

First up: GOOD POEMS, edited by Garrison Keillor.


Just leave me a comment on this post, and you're entered to win! I'll announce this week's winner when we do it all over again NEXT Friday. Meanwhile, I will be writing a brand-spanking new poem every day this month. Yep, it's happening, folks. Starting TO-DAY.

Now for today's poem:

A Secret Life

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don't say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

- Stephen Dunn

For Poetry Friday, check out Book Aunt who's got Roundup!