National Poetry Month || Part One: Reading Poetry

April is national poetry month! I love poetry. I love reading it, writing it, listening to it, reflecting on it- I just love poetry! I’ve been looking forward to this month in the blog for so long because it is all poetry focused.

I’ll be sharing poems I’ve written, along with favorites from well-known poets, and easy ways you can make poetry a part of your day-to-day-life, should you be so inclined! (And you should be. Poetry is good for you. I promise!)

Reading anything is beneficial. The science is there: they’ve proven you could be 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease by reading daily, cognitive neuropsychologists say reading can reduce stress up to 68%, and other studies have shown reading regularly will also improve memory function.

But this is a poetry post; so reading is good for you, great –what about reading poetry? Do the benefits change? Yes!* In preparing for this blog, I came across two articles, “Science Shows Something Surprising About What Reading Poetry Does to Your Brain,” and “4 Reasons Poetry is Good For Us,” and both shared scientific studies involving poetry specifically and how it effects our health. Most of the same benefits came as would from prose, but they saw those results amplified when the subject matter was poetry. Especially those benefits which related to memory and emotion. They sited the positive effects of poetry in the treatment of depression, the healing process, and memory illnesses.

But even if it weren’t for the science backing it, poetry is, to use a cliché, good for your soul. It’s a time of self-reflection and sparks our minds into thinking deeper about things. There isn't a lot going on in our modern day lifestyle that does this. Poetry seems to capture beauty, and the simple things that matter, in a way buzfeed and Disney Channel never can. (I mean Girl Meets World definitely comes closest of all, but still, it’s got nothing on A Children’s Garden of Verses).

Turning on the TV or scrolling through Facebook is easy, but because of today’s technology poetry is more accessible than ever, too. If you’d like to read more poetry, but don’t know where to start, here are some great resources:

• Every year, the publishing house Knopf celebrates National Poetry Month by sending a poem a day to your inbox for the month of April. Click here sign up for a free poem-a-day from Knopf.

• Poetry Magazine is making this month's issue FREE in honor of National Poetry Month. Click here to download this month’s issue of Poetry Magazine for your smart phone, or a PDF version on your computer.

• Click here to follow the Children’s Poetry Foundation, they post a poem everyday 

At our house the kids love Shel Silverstein, and Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too is probably their favorite of his. The boys all have this one memorized. A couple of mine are If by Rudyard Kipling, and i thank you God for most this amazing by ee cummings. I want to know the poems you love to read. Share them in the comments section! 

From under the kitchen table,

clh xo

*Guys, these are just interesting ideas and antidotes I came across on the Internet. I, in no way shape or form, am prescribing poetry for your health or illnesses, nor do I dare raise the thought that I could be one whose opinion on those topics should matter or be taken too seriously. It’s just something that made me go, “well that’s neat, I want to share this with others!” ;)