daily poem: Wet Evening in April / Patrick Kavanagh

Trust National Poetry Month to happen at the same time as ScriptFrenzy (30 days, 100 pages, yiiikes), it's going to be a busy (and fun) few weeks! You'll be able to follow my ScriptFrenzy progress over at my film blog The Usherette, from April 2nd onwards, when I'll be living deadline free for a wee while at least! So, here's a little gem from Patrick Kavanagh to start off our poetical April, and very appropriate it is - as I type blustery wind and April showers are rattling the windowpanes, time to get under the duvet with a mug of something piping hot and chocolatey...


Wet Evening in April
Patrick Kavanagh

The birds sang in the wet trees
And as I listened to them it was a hundred years from now
And I was dead and someone else was listening to them.
But I was glad I had recorded for him
The melancholy.



Photo by Bator Horvath

poetry month

Gosh! It's April already! The "cruellest month" if you believe Eliot. I'm rather more positive than ol' T.S. and am hoping that Spring is springing beautifully wherever you are, I noticed some lovely snowdrops yesterday and felt very light and bright and full of seasonal joys :)

Did you know that this April is National Poetry Month? Well, in the US and Canada at least, and I'm thinking it should definitely extend to the blogosphere, I'm all for poetry-sans-frontiers. So, in honour of National Poetry Month I'm planning a month-long poetry party at The Portmanteau with posts including:

• a poem a day: an eclectic bunch of handpicked classic and contemporary favourites, available here and on my Tumblr blog
• audio goodness: downloadble mp3 audio recordings of poets reading their poetry
• poet profiles & interviews: sampling 30 contemporary poets from across the globe

Phew! I'm nothing if not ambitious. I want to get into the routine of blogging regularly and thought this would be a great way to kick-start The Portmanteau - we'll see how it goes... I hope you'll join me for a month of poetical adventures!