April is National Poetry Month. That means nationwide, the month of April is filled with even larger numbers of poetry related events than other months of the year. Hopefully, reading about them in your local newspapers and on websites will encourage you to attend, and listening to poets will spark your interest in participating in literary events during the coming year. Poets write poetry and read it publicly, to paraphrase William Wordsworth, for sharing one person’s insides with another.

Becoming a Participating Reader

Finding a Venue:

• If you want to become a reader for public series, find out who the series coordinators are and ask them if they would be interested in seeing some of your poems with an eye toward inviting you to read. If you’ve read in a series before, let the coordinators know your experience reading from your work before audiences by telling them you have enjoyed those events.
• If there is an open mike associated with a reading or event in your local, participate. An open mike is an event in which an invited reader reads first and audience members who have signed up get a certain amount of time to share their writing. Always adhere to the time limitations. No matter how much better you believe your poems are than the poems of the other readers or how starved you are for an audience, it is unfair to use more than the allotted time, and doing so won’t earn you any credits with the event coordinator or the audience which will be saturated with listening. In fact, having to choose work to read that fits the time parameters can help you do a more focused and memorable reading.

Tips on Giving a Good Reading:

• When you do your reading, remember that you owe your poems and your audience a good job–read slowly and audibly. The kind of shyness or humility that leads to mumbling or reading too quickly or softly short changes the people who have decided to spend their time listening to you. So believe in them if not in yourself.
• Give a short introduction before you begin in which you tell your audience something about yourself and your delight to be included in the evening’s event. If you can tie your reading to some of the thoughts shared by previous readers that evening, the gesture will be appreciated by readers, coordinators and the audience.
• Between poems be sure to pause. Audiences have emotional reactions and they need time to experience them before they can listen to the next poem. Sometimes it is a good  idea to introduce particular poems by saying where you were when you wrote them or why you are reading them this evening. It is not necessary to share the entire situation–your poem will evoke that part of the story. Attend readings and register your feelings about how other poets present their work. Learn from both their strengths and their weaknesses.

Becoming a Reading Event Organizer

If you want to participate as an organizer of poetry functions, you will certainly find a place for yourself.

• A good way to start is by attending whatever poetry functions you can in your area. Look for events at bookstores, cafes, colleges, libraries, and art galleries and check with your local arts commission or arts council  to see what is happening in your town.
• Perhaps you want to begin a yearly celebration of poetry. Go online to Poetry.org from the American Academy of Poets to see what events are proposed nationally and how you can acquire sponsorship for such events in your community.
• Or perhaps you want to start a newsletter, a local magazine, a reading series, or a print series of your own to get poetry into the public eye. Which particular people and which particular organizations would you like to work with in your effort? What is your mission–the purpose of your program–and what are its requirements in terms of location, personnel, funding, publicity and dissemination? Who would be most likely to be interested enough to lend a hand with time, materials, or money? Query people and make appointments to see them. Run ads in the newspaper or on bulletin boards at bookstores and libraries.
• In addition to special National Poetry Month readings, book festivals in many cities provide opportunities for local poets to read. Check to see if your community has a festival and find out how you can volunteer to help create the programming.
• Just because a particular venue doesn’t seem like the most ordinary one for a poetry reading, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make a good venue. W.H. Auden wrote in, “Writing,” an essay collected in his book of prose on poetry, art, and life, The Dyer’s Hand: “In so far as poetry, or any other of the arts, can be said to have an ulterior purpose, it is, by telling the truth, to disenchant and disintoxicate.”
• Going on this sentiment, think outside the box: Is there a hospital or clinic in your area that might like to host a poetry reading series for its staff or patients? Are there mental health awareness outreach programs that might benefit from the shared art of poetry? Are there missions and programs for the homeless or for abused women and children where poetry readings might nurture and be welcome? Starting a series is not hard. And poetry is something important for us all. As William Carlos Williams is quoted, “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”

Why would anyone use what little time they may have for writing to take on a literary event project? For many reasons. If you write poetry, you probably rejoice in being surrounded by people who are appreciating poetry. It feels good to be participating sometimes rather than being alone writing and/or wallowing in the multitude of rejection letter all poets receive. It feels good not to be waiting for an acceptance but to be getting instant gratification from grateful fellow coordinators and audiences. Creating a poetry event can put you in contact with fine poets, people committed to developing themselves as poets, and people who are supportive of poetry. Creating a poetry event can force you to do the work of finding out about the larger world of resources for deepening your abilities with the craft. And finally, creating poetry events can sometimes lead to professional work in a field that you love.

If you work to help others find poetry, I don’t think you will ever regret your participation. You will be increasing the number of experiences available for people, the number of ways for learning the hearts and minds of others and the way they turn out to be very much like our own.