April is Poetry Month, and it is also the time of spring transition.
As spring teases us, with slush and sun alternated with snow and wind, it is easy to feel overwhelmed with tumultuous emotions and what might be called the poetic soul.
While not perhaps as popular today as it was historically, poetry is still a very important part of our culture and our collective psyche.
Poetry is also making new inroads into popular culture through the works of poets like Shane Koykzan and C.R. Avery, both phenomenal Canadian spoken-word poets gaining popularity among all ages, but especially among the younger generations.
Koykzan’s To This Day poem performance on You Tube garnered over 6 million hits.
If you have not yet seen it, look it up and watch it, it is a message everyone can connect with.
Poetry is a way to help release the pain and anguish of betrayal or a broken heart or the wonder of new beginnings and rediscovered joy.
Or perhaps it is the adult way to deal with drama other people can bring into our lives.
Either way, it is the therapist we can all afford, and while therapy might also be a good option, poetry can help.
As the winter makes one last stand, asserting its strength and power over our lives and we continue our diligent tending of the wood stove, fending off the chill of cruel winter, it is a good opportunity to sit and appreciate a piece of poetry or even write a little of our own as we approach poetry month.
As we dream of the gardens we will grow this summer, or imagine rebuilding from broken promises and broken dreams, it is a way to share our experience and offer it up to the world and hopefully learn.
Poetry touches the soul and expresses the deepest of our human experience in ways which allow our feelings to resonate out into the world.
Sometimes they becomes the lyrics of songs, sometimes they become notes for yourself to refer to in better times (or worse ones) and sometimes they become the basis for the new and stronger self you hope to be.
Either way, take some time this month to read or create some poetry.
Even bad poetry serves a purpose, and even bad poetry speaks volumes.
The Fort St. James Bicentennial Library hosted a poetry workshop the week this story came out and is looking at potentially doing more in April to help celebrate poetry month, check out the Fort St. James Library Facebook page for dates and times.