As April begins to draw to a close, now is the perfect time to recognize this month as National Poetry Month. According to the national poetry website, poets.org, National Poetry Month was inaugurated in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. The month is celebrated to raise awareness of poetry’s vital place in our culture. It is also the largest literary celebration in the world observed by schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets.

Drury University is also taking part in the celebration of National Poetry Month by setting up a Blackout Poetry station inside of Olin Library. All throughout the month of April, you can visit the wall to admire others’ poetry and to create some of your own!

Jaqueline Tygart, Associate Librarian and Art Collection Curator at Drury came up with the idea to create blackout poetry in support of National Poetry Month.

“In March I was looking online for ideas for a display case and saw that April was National Poetry Month. I got this idea from an image posted by the Oregon City Public Library and ran the image past Dr. Henderson and Dr. Van Arkel and asked if they thought their students would participate if we put up a display. Dr. Van Arkel brought her poetry class over and we did a little workshop. They created some really interesting pages and built some momentum,” explained Tygart. “Since that early April day, other groups of students have contributed to the wall steadily and we will likely have to expand it before the English Symposium is held here later this month.”

Want to create your own blackout poem? The station set up in the library is easy to find. The Blackout Poetry wall is in the front of the library near the stairs and across from the circulation desk.

Tygart explained that it really isn’t that hard to create your own poem.

“It is really self-explanatory once a person looks at it,” she said. “The concept is to take a page of text from a book, newspaper, etc., and choose words to leave showing.  Then using markers, black out the rest of the text. Some people are able to extract and reshape the given text more skillfully than others. They are all great fun though, and some have embellished them with images as well. There are no rules and no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ ways to do it.”

Although it may seem strange for a whole month to be dedicated to poetry, Tygart says it is important for students to be aware of literature and poetry.

“Words have power and poetry is another outlet for using words. National Poetry Month helps all of us to consider just what poetry is, and hopefully expand our understanding of its many forms and expressions,” said Tygart. “Students who might be intimidated by writing a poem on a blank page can easily use words that are already there to say something new and unique. I think it is always useful for students to play with words in various ways.”

Be sure to stop by the library before the end of April to make your own poem to be displayed with the others!

Article written by Claire Plaster.