Itâs here again â National Poetry Month. If you were taught, as poet Billy Collins joked, that you had to âtie a poem to a chair and beat a confession out of it . to find out what it really means,â you might flinch at the very idea.
But in this pandemic year, more and more people have found themselves turning to poetry not only to help face their pain, but also to remember moments of light. Thanks to people who shared some of their own favorites this month, I found Ashland poet Angela Howe Deckerâs poem about waking to watch her young boys who have crept into their parentsâ bed âlike cats or friendly spiritsâ and before dawn are âgreat wizards in small bodies, / arms outstretched above their heads, / drawing deep swells of breath and / pulling the morning toward us.â