Chosen, they say, because ‘April is the cruelest month.’

I have been remiss this year. Not that I really do that much to celebrate it. I’m actually an introverted kind of fellow. In my professional life, I can be as hail-fellow-well-met as the next flak, but in my personal life, I am something else. And poetry is part of my personal life. And I’ve been sick, I’ve been busy, I’ve been traveling, I’ve been dealing with urgent personal matters, and then I look up and April is almost over and National Poetry Month with it.

‘For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like another fall of man.’

If don’t celebrate National Poetry Month, what does that say?

I’ve read a good deal of poetry, though I haven’t finished any new collections. I brought a selection of books by the sometimes crazed nineteenth century English pastoral poet, John Clare, with me on a trip. I rediscovered my copy of the partly Kenneth Rexroth edited Women Poets of Japan (which  contains, I have heard, at least one poem by a fictional Japanese women who is actually Rexroth himself, which feels more problematic than it used to). I read the latest edition of Poetry (the magazine). I read a bit from that strange, Japanese collection, Cat Town.

Maybe this was month for turning inside one’s self. Which, while valid, is poor timing.