Poetry

So April is sometimes National Poetry Month in the Nation of Internet. And there's an uptick in poetry on my d-roll and in my internet life generally, and this is pleasing. One that caught my eye recently was from zarhooie: The sciences sing a lullabye. Really made me smile, especially

Of course
You're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.

I also learned from Facebook that someone I knew slightly at school was a poet, and also that she died a couple of years ago. I had, honestly, almost forgotten who Megan was until I saw FB posts about an event being held in her memory. We were sometimes friends, in some way; she was part of the train crowd who commuted quite long distances to school by train. She was somewhat prickly and drama-prone, and I was impatient and unsympathetic, so the bond-between-social-outcasts interactions we had never quite blossomed into ongoing friendship. I'm glad to know she did well for herself in the few decades she had, and sorry that it was so few.

And my brother-the-poet managed to get a very short slot on Radio 4 talking about poetry and masculinity. If you're in the right time and place to have access to iPlayer, it's from about 1hr 54 minutes in Saturday's Today. ( commentary )

So I commend anyone who's interested in poetry and gender to his erudite yet accessible piece: Poems that make men cry.