The poet Kim Rosen suggested (among other things) making thirty copies of poem you, in particular, love. Then, to read that poem to someone in your life and hand them a copy.

It’s a wonderful idea, though I will probably never do it (I am too non-confrontational, too uncomfortable with salesmanship). I like it because it gives the people who receive it a very manageable way to enter into the world of poetry and forces them to look at it and try to understand and appreciate. They are forced to this because they know that this poem is uniquely meaningful to the giver.

Should someone actually attempt this, I would hope that it would not just be something by Robert Frost or a sonnet by Shakespeare, but something that digs down deeper into the world of poetry.

And now that I have pondered this further, I think I will do it. I will bring a copy of a poem by Cavafy to my Dungeons & Dragons group (I named my character after him, so the idea of a poem by Cavafy will have some meaning for my compatriots) and maybe even embarrass my significant other by handing some out to her fellow vendors at Eastern Market. Or maybe I will forget or lose my nerve and not do it after all.

Though for me, National Poetry Month is something to be celebrated, however flawed, others see the flaws as far outweighing whatever positives may exist.

Charles Bernstein, for example, is very put out by the whole spectacle. I cannot disagree with his arguments, either. He posits that NPM (National Poetry Month) becomes a means to promulgate the safest and most milquetoast poems. Even worse, that the Poetry Foundation (which is behind NPM) does not actually promote poems and poets during April, but merely the idea of poetry. In general, the critique is well worth reading and I suggest you click on it and read.

Nonetheless, though I tend to agree with every word Bernstein writes in that article, I still treasure NPM. Not because the Poetry Foundation takes out full page ads, filled with the names of their sponsors rather than poems and poets. But because of what people unaffiliated with them do with it. Independent bookstores rush to bring in poets for readings. Even the big chain bookstores will have enterprising managers put books of poetry on the tables near the entrance. So what if the books in question are by Billy Collins or (heaven forfend) Jewel. It’s still poetry. People like me make a conscious effort to support poetry even more than usual this month. Isn’t that worth something? No one loves NPM for what the establishment does with it, but what individual people, libraries, teachers, students, and bookstore managers do with it.

I myself will not do as much with it as I should. But damn it, I will celebrate it.