Celebrate the written (and spoken) word in April

Spring is in the air here in Asheville, making it a very fitting time to celebrate  National Poetry Month.

"National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in 1996. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture" (Poets.org).

Not sure how you can participate? Check out 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month to get some ideas.

11.  Attend a poetry reading at a local university, bookstore, cafe, or library.

You can easily check #11 off your list at any of the upcoming WordFest events. WordFest is sponsored by Lenoir-Rhyne University Asheville, April 12th-14th and the festival director is LR's very own,  Laura Hope-Gill, Assistant Professor of Writing.

"The 11th Asheville WordFest invites audiences and participants to venture deeply into spaces of tension and complexity in search of possibility with readings and workshops featuring poets, authors, artists, storytellers, and community facilitators.

Headlined by North Carolina’s Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green, WordFest’s faculty this year guide us to write, to enter our interiors and emerge with some new story. Who knows where that simple act will lead? It is the microcosm of the great transformation resilience requires. Practicing it in a small, supportive group gives us grounding for doing it in other settings" (avlwordfest.com).

For schedule and more check out: https://avlwordfest.com/ 

I'd also like to propose one more way to celebrate National Poetry Month: 

31. Dig into the rich poetry resources available to you through your library.

LR libraries provides its students access to some fabulous resources:

• Faber Poetry Library - Contains full-text poems of many of the twentieth century's influential poets. 
• ProquestLearning: Literature - Provides more than 180,000 full-text works of poetry, prose, and drama from around the world.
• HomeGrown Ebook Collection - A collection of more than 1,200 fiction and nonfiction titles are part of NC LIVE's permanent collections.
• Literary Reference Center Plus - Full text plot summaries, synopses and work overviews, articles/essays of literary criticism, author biographies, literary journals, book reviews, classic and contemporary poems and short stories, classic texts and more. 
• Some articles about this month's feature topic - Does poetry matter?
• NovelistPlus - An easy-to-use resource that uses appeal factors and expert reviews to offer read-alike and listen-alike recommendations for fiction, nonfiction, and audiobooks. Novelist includes a number of poetry titles as well. 

Like what you see here? You may also be interested in the library resources organized in the Masters of Arts in Writing Libguide.

If you need help using or accessing any of the resources you see listed here, please don't hesitate to Ask A Librarian!