It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day from lack of what is found there.  Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, Copyright © 1962, William Carlos Williams

On April 1^st 1996, President Bill Clinton declared the month of April National Poetry Month, after a campaign begun by the Academy of American Poets in 1995. For Poetry Month in 1998, the Academy held an “election” for a postage stamp honoring an American poet, and after more than 10,000 ballets were counted, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp bearing the likeness of Langston Hughes. This year, as in every year since its inception, almost 200,000 original artwork posters commissioned by the Academy will be distributed for free to teachers, librarians and book sellers, and press releases and media kits will be distributed across the country to editors and journalists.  On their website, poets.org, the Academy offers 30 different ways to celebrate National Poetry Month – one for each day of the month. Across the country, and across the state of Alabama, Poetry Month celebrations will abound, as they will on both sides of Mobile Bay, starting with downtown Mobile.  If poetry were not the necessary and positive part of everyday life that William Carlos Williams attests to in his poem, none of the events mentioned above would have ever taken place.

On April 5^th, the Mobile Writers Guild will welcome Dr. Sue Walker, Poet Laureate of the State of Alabama, to the conference room of the Mobile Public Library’s West Regional Branch, from 6:00pm to 7:30pm.  Dr. Walker, Stokes Distinguished Professor and Director of the Creative Writing program at the University of South Alabama, is publisher of Negative Capability Press, established in 1981, which was ranked third in the nation in poetry by Writers Digest in the early 1990’s, out of 2700 markets.  She has published such notable poets as Gerald Stern, William Stafford, David Ignatow, Mary Oliver, and Rita Dove, and won the Book of the Year Award from the Alabama State Poetry Society for her own collection Blood Will Bear Your Name, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She has published five volumes of poetry, and her work appears in such publications as Connotation Press, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, and Poetry Magazine. The Mobile Writers Guild meets on the first Thursday of each month, September through May. Meetings are free and open to the public. For more information, contact mobilewritersguild@gmail.com.

On April 7^th, the University of South Alabama Creative Writing Program and the Pensters Writing Group will host Poetry Café on the Bay at the USA Performance Center on St. James Street.  This family-friendly celebration, which features poets from both sides of the bay, is from 2:00pm until 4:30pm, and is free and open to the public.  For more information on Poetry Café on the Bay, contact Dr. Sue Walker by phone at (251) 460-6149 or email at swalker@jaguar1.usouthal.edu, or contact P.T. Paul by phone at (251) 625-3504 or by email at PTPhantazein@gmail.com.

In Fairhope, on April 14^th, from 10:00am to 12:00pm, the Pensters Writing Group will host Dr. Alice Kracke, former editor of Sense Magazine and full-time English instructor at the University of South Alabama, whose program “To Live & Write in L.A.: Editing a Monthly Magazine” will touch on those attributes that editors look for in prose and poetry.  At this regular monthly meeting in Dahlgren Hall, on the Fairhope Faulkner campus, the membership will be given the finished product of their group Poetry Month project, a poem known as an “Exquisite Corpse,” composed from their individual contributions. (For more information on the “Exquisite Corpse,” visit the website of the Academy of American Poets, poets.org.) Members will also learn the results of the monthly prose and poetry contests, which all dues paid members may participate in, and whose guidelines are available in the yearbook provided at the beginning of each season. Meetings are free and open to the public.  For more information on the Pensters Writing Group, contact P.T. Paul at PTPhantazein@gmail.com or by phone at (251) 625-3504.

On April 21, the Baldwin Writers Group will hold its monthly meeting from 10:00am to 12:00pm at the Daphne Public Library.  Established to encourage poets and prose writers to develop and improve their writing, the Baldwin Writers Group welcomes beginning, as well as seasoned writers, to an atmosphere of support and encouragement. For the past several years, they have held the “Write Tight” series of workshops, established their own annual writing contests with categories of poetry and prose, and have a workshop planned for June of this year.  For more information on the Baldwin Writers Group, visit www.baldwinwritersgroup.com or contact President Steven Moore at steven@grimtrojan.com.

 On April 28^th, for the first time in its forty-four year history, the Alabama State Poetry Society will hold its annual spring meeting in Fairhope at the University of South Alabama Baldwin County Campus Conference Center. Asked what prompted the Society to hold the spring meeting on the Eastern Shore, First Vice President Barry Marks replied, “as the Society invites members from all across the state to join and participate, we thought it high time we held a meeting in the Mobile/Fairhope area and with the help of Fairhope’s Pensters and State Poet Laureate Sue Walker, we were able to make it happen.”  First on the agenda for the spring meeting is a poetry reading on Friday night, April 27, featuring ASPS President Joe Whitten and First Vice President Barry Marks, both well-known and accomplished poets.  Of his life as a poet, Barry Marks admits, “I became interested in reading and writing poetry in high school (something to do with a girl) and the interest has remained with me for nearly 40 years.”  Joe Whitten, on the other hand, had a negative response to his first effort, or as he tells it, “I wrote my first poem in the 9th grade--a verse about each of my teachers. It was not well received by the teachers, but my classmate responded well. Mother didn't.”  The schedule of events for the ASPS meeting includes a performance on Saturday, April 28^th, by Ayodele Heath, poet, teacher, and spoken word artist, with a workshop later that afternoon, and a presentation by Dr. Sue Walker titled “Uncreative Writing.” Results of the ASPS annual contest will also be announced and prizes awarded.  For more information on the Spring Meeting of the Alabama State Poetry Society, contact Barry Marks by email at bmarks@marksweinberg.com or by phone at (205) 422-8296, or contact Joe Whitten by email at whitten93@windstream.net or by phone at (205) 577-3628.  For more information on the Alabama State Poetry Society, visit their website at alabamapoets.org.

In his 1950 acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, William Faulkner stated, “the poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”  Barry Marks, when asked how poetry fits into his life, concurs with Faulkner when he says, “Poetry has helped me survive great loss and deal with grief as well as express my joy in the many times life has been good to me.” And Joe Whitten declares, “A world without poetry would be a world stuck in a bleak mid-winter overcast day.” Perhaps that is what William Carlos Williams was talking about.