Dive Into Poetry Challenge 2013

I've been meaning to sign up for this challenge forever. I don't why I haven't until . . . Ooo shiny!

Serena at Savvy Verse & Wit is my hero. She is successfully bringing more poetry reading out into the blogosphere, via both her blog and the Dive Into Poetry Challenge 2013. She also offers several ways of participating, ensuring that even novice poetry readers can succeed. You can:

• Read and review up to 2 books of poetry throughout 2013 and leave the full link to each review in Mr. Linky.
• Participate in at least 3 Virtual Poetry Circles throughout the year.
• Sign up to feature poetry on your blog for April’s National Poetry Month as part of Savvy Verse & Wit’s Blog Tour.
• Feature one poet per month on your own blog.
• Or some combination of the above.

I've been a poetry lover for a long time, but I have no doubt that even If you are picking up your first book of poetry you can complete this challenge successfully.
 
Here are my choices: 

Read and review up to 2 books of poetry throughout 2013 and leave the full link to each review in Mr. Linky.

I am not a book reviewer. I would describe myself as more of a literary scrapbooker. I post the things that move and speak to me, and have only recently begun talking about them. Also, my reviews tend toward simple impressions rather than actual reviews, but I offer them for whatever they're worth.


1. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair - Pablo Neruda  
2. Conversation Pieces: poems that talk to other poems - Kurt Brown, ed.
3. Coming Into Eighty - May Sarton
4. Modern Haiku Volume 43.3
5. Acorn #29
6. The Moon is Always Female - Marge Piercy 
7. The Book of American Negro Poetry - James Weldon Johnson  
8. The trouble With Poetry - Billy Collins   
9. Ariel - Sylvia Plath   
10. Haiku: This other World - Richard Wright 
11. The Dream Keeper and Other Poems - Langston Hughes
12. Ardor: Poems of Life - Janine Canan
13. The Woman Who Fell from the Sky - Joy Harjo
14. The Ring and the Book - Robert Browning
15. An Introduction to Haiku: An anthology of Poems and Poets - ed. Harold G. Henderson
16. Not a Muse: The inner Lives of Women - ed. Kate Rogers, Viki Holmes
17. Tracing the Tradition: An Anthology of Poetry by Women - ed. Linda Hall
18. Classic Poetry: An Illustrated Collection - ed. Michael Rosen, illus. Paul Howard
19. Poems of Rumi (audiobook) - Jalaluddin Rumi   

(audiobook) - Jalaluddin Rumi

Poems of Rumi (audiobook) - Jalaluddin Rumi

Poems of Rumi (audiobook) - Jalaluddin Rumi

20. The Knopf National Poetry Month(TM) catalog Collection (audiobook) - Various    

Participate in at least 3 Virtual Poetry Circles throughout the year.

Like I said earlier, while reading and loving poetry is a long time habit, discussing it online is a fairly new experience. I shall attempt to overcome my natural reticence (Why are you laughing?) and participate in the Virtual Poetry Circles. (Should I bring cookies? What is the etiquette on that?)



1. 208th - The Swing, Robert Louis Stevenson.
2. 210th - Epitaph for a Romantic Woman, Louise Bogan.
3. 224th - Last Lines - Anne Bronte.
 

Sign up to feature poetry on your blog for April’s National Poetry Month as part of Savvy Verse & Wit’s Blog Tour.

Since I am signing up late this one is not an option, even though I posted a poem every day during National Poetry Month. (I did, honest!)

Feature one poet per month on your own blog.

This is actually something that I have wanted to do for a long time. Perhaps the incentive that comes with this challenge will help me get myself in gear. One can only hope!




June - Countee Cullen  
July - Louise Erdrich  
August - Lucille Clifton
September - E. E. Cummings  
November - Wislawa Szymborska  

Or some combination of the above.


I realize that I've bitten off quite a bit with this challenge. During the summer it will probably be fairly easy, but once school starts it will become a real challenge. But hey, that's what it's called, isn't it.