April is Poetry Month, Pt. 2

One of the highlights of my library career was the Poetry Assembly. I got to be the MC and all the teachers led their little girls in wonderful poetry readings. We had poems in French and in Spanish. Poems with costumes and poems with action. It was a great day for all my students and I loved it. So I still think of April as poetry time and I've been trying to read a few poems here and there. I'm discovering Peter Meinke, a founder of the Writers in Paradise conference. I'm rediscovering Billy Collins. I'm enjoying a new poet, new to me- Jane Mayhall and this poem from my Poem-a-Day emails. Here's a part that tickled me from "Notes For Sixtieth Wedding Anniversary"

Lofty, but not above it.

How could anything so rash happen?

The Baptist ice-cream, and a pitiful living room.

The pastor in seersucker, red-faced,

bewildered as icons.

And Billy Collins, writing about Bathtub Families. Remember those little figures? They were originally made of wood, later of plastic. Often went down the bathtub drain, backing up, needing a plumber. What were they called? Well, I love what he says about them:

Bathtub Families

is not just a phrase I made up

though it would have given me pleasure

to have written those words in a notebook

then looked up at the sky wondering what they meant
...
I hesitated to buy it because I knew

I would then want the entire series of Bathtub Families...

Great fun, reading poetry. Especially the kind you can actually understand! Give it a try. It's Poetry Month. Soon it will be Poem in Your Pocket Day. You can't miss that one!

(NB: Aha! Found what I was looking for. Surely Mr. Collins means those little Fisher Price "People" = Bathtub Families)