Poetry: It's Epic

April 05, 2012

It’s April, probably one of my favorite months along with January, February, March, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, and December. Okay. I like all times of the year. The season changes are always pretty, especially as we’re getting into the warmer months—though it’s been a little warm this past March. We didn’t really get a winter, did we? That’s all right, last year's winter counted for two. But back on topic. It’s April.

And do you know what April means? (Drum roll please) It’s National Poetry Month!

Now I’ve got just one word for you. Epic. I've found that there’s a great and winding history to poetry in my college English studies. Epics are pretty, well, epic. I really enjoy sonnets for their elegant form and the musical reversal in the last two lines, but epic poetry is something culturally unique. Each tells a full length story of a culture’s history. They originated in the tradition of passing the history of a nation's great wars or beginning in an oral tradition. The rhyme schemes helped with the memorization of the story.

Now that’s not to say that a small free verse or blank verse poem couldn’t do the same, but most of the epics we have today are those that have come from past cultures now only known in history. There is Beowulf from the Old English tongue, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales both from a Middle English tongue, and John Milton’s Paradise Lost to name a few.

Now that I’ve gotten that academic English side of me out, I have to tell you about our fantastic display featuring kids’ and adults’ poetry. There’s a poem below, written on the paper. That poem follows my blog here, but what we want is for you, our awesome patrons, to come in and add to it or write your own separate poems right there on the paper covering the table. Let the creativity soar this April, let your poet side show, and celebrate poetry all month long!

Happy writing!

A Library Poem

A Library is some place super cool.
It’s where the librarians are friendly
And the books won’t make you drool

Unless they’re cook books
And you’re hungry, then go ahead.

A library is home, for books,
For teachers and students
Parents and kids,
And most definitely the Library is
For You!

~Cody C.
Parkville Branch