Hey all Teen Readers, April is Poetry Month!

So, people have pretty strong opinions about poetry. Some love it and some claim they HATE it. As someone who doesn't read a lot of poetry, I don't think anyone can truly hate it. Surely it's that they don't know how much of what we consume as art IS poetry. Poetry takes on so many different forms. And while some think it MUST rhyme, it doesn't actually have to do anything other than what the poet wants it to do. Some may enjoy reading it while others prefer to hear it spoken. Some recognize that lyrics are a form of poetry, while others with narrowly focused musical interests might dismiss them as "gibberish".

Poetry can be confined to set rules like a haiku (five, seven, five) or a sonnet (ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG). But it can also be free-verse, which is confined to nothing other than the whims of the poet and the natural rhythms of speech. Poetry is an art that can also be used to create other art by using the words to form an actual shape. An example of a shape or concrete poem can be seen in this poem by Brian Bilston (found on his Facebook page).

Tweens who are reading Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly for this month's Tween Reads will also learn that ASL (American Sign Language) also has its own poetry. While the words in the poem may not rhyme based on the sound of it when spoken, the shapes of the hands for these words are formed by similar hand shapes, making them rhyme in ASL! Copies of this book can be found on the Juvenile Book Club shelf in the Children's Library. Tween Reads will meet on Thursday, April 16th at 4 pm.

Teen readers will be reading Alone by Megan E. Freeman, which is a novel written in verse. The author has chosen to tell this story of survival through standalone, free-verse poems rather than in prose separated into chapters. This makes it a pretty quick read while still being emotionally intense. Digital copies are always available through Hoopla. There is also a physical copy in the YA Fiction collection. Teen Reads will meet on Tuesday, April 28th at 4:30 pm.

YA Reads thinks they decided to forego reading poetry this month to instead read a play by Irish poet/playwright/author, Oscar Wilde. However, The Importance of Being Earnest, while not technically a poem, uses quick, clever dialogue that functions much like poetry! With its rhythmic and balanced dialogue that combines the trivial with the serious in comical ways, it is a play about the lies told by our main characters as they strive to be both earnest and Earnest. This title is in the public domain, and digital copies can be downloaded for free from various online sources. Because it is a play, you may instead wish to listen to a performance, available for checkout with your library card on Hoopla. YA Reads meets Saturday, April 11th at noon (this may change due to the availability of the current members of this book club, so be sure to check our event calendar for any changes)!