Amid acknowledgements of diseases from anxiety, breast cancer, and COPD to diabetes, days, weeks and months are dedicated to spreading awareness of various causes and interests. While some teach black history, others preach detriments of abuse, but this warm-breeze blowing and bright-blossom bursting month of April is dedicated to poetry.

Events such as Tavia’s Salon and Poetry Café on the Bay have begun building the month’s climax, while many local poets, writers and readers look forward to a big finish in the final pages of poetry month: Alabama State Poetry Society’s spring symposium will be held April 28 at the University of South Alabama Fairhope campus.

According to Barry Marks, the group’s first vice president, “The Alabama State Poetry Society is a member of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, the nation’s largest and most active association of poets. The National Federation encourages its member state associations to hold regular meetings and for many years, ASPS has met in the fall and spring, with a less formal mid-winter meeting. At the fall and spring meetings, the winners of ASPS’s semi-annual poetry contests are announced, awarded prizes and invited to read their poems.”

ASPS President Joe Whitten explained that while some things remain, there’s a big change in plans this year: “Traditionally we've met in central Alabama. We decided to branch out to different areas of Alabama for our general meeting in order to involve poets in those sections of our state. We felt we were not reaching out to all Alabama poets by keeping our meeting in one general area.”

Marks agreed that some friends from lower Alabama helped the changes come to fruition.

“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,” he said.

According to the group’s website, alabamapoets.org, ASPS meetings and 460-strong membership has several goals as they reach out to a wide variety of poets.

“We sponsor contests, guest readings, workshops and other activities. These activities are designed to help members improve their skills, while enhancing the enjoyment of reading and writing poetry. We have no bias as to form or style; anyone serious about writing good poetry and anyone who enjoys reading good verse is welcome. We are always looking for new members.”

Organizers believe they’re promoting a worthy cause to others along with honing their craft on a personal-poetry level.

Whitten reminisced about his own poetic start.

“When did each of you discover poetry, and when did you begin to write it?

“I wrote my first poem in the 9th grade—a verse about each of my teachers,” he began. “It was not well received by the teachers, but my classmate responded well, Mother didn't.”

“Around 1990, former student, Jonathan Smith, kept insisting that I attend a critique group with him at Jacksonville State University. He kept on asking and asking, so at last I agreed to ‘visit’ the group with him, to get him to stop asking. I took a poem to read. The group responded positively, and I was on my way. Dr. Marian Davis encouraged me and gave me confidence in my ability. Other mentors were Dr. John Morris and Ralph Hammond.”

Marks sited inspirations like William Butler Yeats, Billy Collins and Mary Oliver as he recalled a different approach to the shared passion.

“I began writing illustrated stories as soon as I learned to write and I have been at it ever since, hopefully with a bit better vocabulary and grammar. 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. Writing poetry assists in my attempts to master the English language, which in turn is essential to my occupation as a lawyer. It still impresses girls.”

He admitted that his hobby requires hard work and discipline, along with a sort of essence that’s more felt than learned.

“Knowing when anything is ‘done’ is difficult. My philosophy is that poetry, and any art, must engage the reader or viewer, bring him or her in, and strike home with a message or meaning that opens a spiritual and intellectual door to a greater truth. It all sounds pretty fancy but the bottom line is that a good poem grabs the reader and, through images and imagination, sound and music and other devices delights the reader into reading deeply and wanting to read again. Once I feel the reader will connect with the poem and say to him or herself ‘Yes, I can feel that, it is like I wrote it, I am glad I read it’—I know I am there.”

Whitten said he, too, strives to reach his audience and he believes Alabama roots have a distinct way of getting him there.

“I want a poem to say something that my audience can understand—realizing, of course, there are different poems for different audiences. My Alabama mountain background has influenced all my writing. I was blessed to be born on Sand Mountain in Jackson County, Ala. The tiny community of Bryant was a mile-and-a-half from Georgia and a mile-and-a-half from Tennessee. Although we moved from Bryant just before I turned seven years old, the memories of that lovely section of Alabama have remained in my heart through the turning years. The people—both my relatives and the citizens of Bryant—and their hard-scrabble existence are found in many of my poems. I believe there is something about growing up in the South, and particularly in Alabama, that blesses poets with life experiences that no other section is blessed with.”

He divulged his feelings about poetry’s importance in his daily life.

“A world without poetry would be a world stuck in a bleak, mid-winter, overcast day,” he said.

Marks connects to the world and searches for higher truths through the art form—here again, a necessity in a happy and productive life, he explained.

“It’s a hobby, but one that infuses almost everything I do. After one book and a few chapbooks published and two more accepted by publishers, I guess I am at that level of amateur that can no longer claim it doesn’t mean anything to me. I am drawn to people who like to read and feel what they read. 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. There is no higher purpose to education than learning to express one’s self, no more rewarding activity than learning to express the human spirit and emotions, the mind-teasing truths and paradoxes of everyday life and no better explanation for why we exist than to connect with and nurture others as we try to improve the world around us. All of this is poetry and what it can do.”

For more information on April’s meeting or ASPS membership, visit alabamapoets.org.