A poet, you know it

Can you believe that it is already April 2006? My, how time doth flies...

April, besides being the "cruelest month," as penned by T.S. Eliot, is also National Poetry Month. Therefore, I am encouraging all to read a little poetry this "cruel month." Spend an hour with Auden, a day Donne, seconds with Shakespeare, a week with Wordsworth--whatever you can spare to pay homage to this literary art form.

Need help getting started? I suggest you visit the Shel Silverstein website, www.shelsilverstein.com. Shel Silverstein was one of my favorite writers when I was in elementary school and I must admit that my "heart leaps up" when I hear verses from Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic. If you have any favorite poets or poetry websites, I encourage you to comment on them and I will include the suggestions in future posts.

Therefore, I leave you all with some words from one of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins:

"God's Grandeur"

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like the shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and share man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.