National Poetry Month has arrived!

Now that we've had a chance to recover from Kodak's false promise of instant live kittens on April Fool's Day, it's time to kick off National Poetry Month!

On the Griffin Campus, celebrate poetry with the library's I Am Poetry project at 3.00 p.m. on Thursday, April 5.  Come and listen to live readings of original poetry by Southern Crescent students!

On the Flint River Campus, stop by the library to check out the Poetry Wall, or submit some poetry of your own!

To cap it all off, we'll be posting poetry on the blog throughout the month.  We're kicking things off with former Poet Laureate Billy Collin's thoughts on reading and teaching poetry.

Introduction to Poetry
by Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.