April is National Poetry Month!

Celebrate National Poetry Month at Book Culture! On our Twitter and Instagram Story, we'll be posting a poem every day of the month. (Check out a list of our featured books below.) We'll also have some exciting events and other fun things to celebrate some of our favorite poetry this month!

Poem-a-Day Featured Books

The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson

Boy With Thorn by Ricky Laurentiis

Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith

Milk by Dorothea Lasky

Eye Level by Jenny Xie

Selected Poems by John Ashbery

Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis

Ordinary Beast by Nicole Sealey

The Möbius Strip Club of Grief by Bianca Stone

Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen

The Black Flower and Other Zapotec Poesm by Natalia Toledo

Discipline by Dawn Lundy Martin

Phrasis by Wendy Xu

Semi-Automatic by Evie Shockley

Nepantla: An Anthology of Queer Poets of Color

The Breakbeat Poets, Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic

The Barbarous Century by Leah Umansky

Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

The Blueness of the Evening by Hassan Najmi

Selected Writings by Charles Olson

Stolen Air by Osip Mandelstam

Love Sonnets and Elegies by Louise LabĂ©

Together and By Ourselves by Alex Dimitrov

No Way Out But Through by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Madwomen by Gabriela Mistral

Opened Ground by Seamus Heaney

Brooklyn Poets Anthology

Advice from the Lights by Steph Burt

Dear Angel of Death by Simone White

Other Features

Author Q&A with Gabriel Ojeda-Sague

Author Q&A with Kate Colby


Using lines from all the poems featured this month, we wrote a cento for National Poetry Month!

 

IT COULD BE YOUR FIRST TIME

a cento for national poetry month


 

It could be your first time, it could be a waste.

No matter. The mind resides both inside and out.

 

lately, I open my mouth

All of a sudden I laugh & I weep,

I can hear hope everywhere.                       we

were winged creatures weren't we tell me because i still dream of flight.

 

*

 

This is a partial history of fabulously forgetting. We drift inside

the blaze of the sky but not heat, not

Forgotten, reabsorbed. Like love

 

and I should know I’ve kept inventory

nutrition facts

 

*

 

I walked with my hands

didn’t know how to bend,

Be a person again

a child, or be like a child—

scream

 

And here we bask in the debris,

With it, you and I

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

In death we belong to everyone

Ancestral voices prophesying war.

 

*

 

Which amount is greater?

 

*

 

We were just going. I was just leaving,

I remember what has not come to pass what drags, remains,

you set I rise I hope

know, too, what it feels like when something shows up

in this trying, these times

Glowing over there where the unknown occurs.

Find the beginning.


Poetry-Related Events

April 10th at 7:30 - Poetry Book Club's First Meeting: This new book club will be discussing Bianca Stone's The Möbius Strip Club of Grief at Book Culture on 112th!

April 13th at 7pm - Karl Kirchwey and Dennis NurkseKarl Kirchwey reads from Stumbling Blocks: Roman Poetry at Book Culture on 112th!

April 17th at 7pm - Leah Umansky and David Gutowski: Leah Umansky reads from her new collection of poetry The Barbarous Century at Book Culture on 112th!

April 19th at 7pm - Hassan Najmi, Madeleine Dobie, Kathy Engel, Julio Ramos, and Mbarek Sryfi: Celebreat the release of Hassan Najmi's The Blueness of the Evening at Book Culture on 112th!

April 20th at 7pm - The Upstairs Play Series presents Rents and Catcall: The Upstairs Play Series is hosting the first in a series of play readings hosted in the upstairs event space *wink wink* of Book Culture on 112th!

April 24th at 7pm - Four Barnard Alumnae Writers: Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Sigrid Nunez, Susan Daitch and B.G. Firmani read from recent work at Book Culture on 112th!