Every year, The Rumpus celebrates National Poetry Month with new poems from poets we admire. We feature a different poet each day, aiming to illustrate a variety of voices and perspectives in contemporary poetry. New poems will appear on weekday afternoons and on weekend mornings. We’ll be sharing the poems on our Facebook page and Twitter feed, and we hope you’ll consider sharing the work of these thirty talented writers on your own social media feeds, too. You can follow along here.
Poetry has always mattered very much to us at The Rumpus. Under the leadership of Senior Poetry Editor Brian Spears, we’ve been celebrating National Poetry Month since 2010, just one year after The Rumpus was founded. Past years have included work from Jericho Brown, Tracy K. Smith, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Eloisa Amezcua, José Olivarez, t’ai freedom ford, and Ching-In Chen, just to name a few.
Last May, I tweeted that “all I want to do with The Rumpus is burn down the patriarchy and promote poetry.” While I (probably) wouldn’t rewrite our mission statement as such, I am incredibly grateful to Team Rumpus Poetry for the phenomenal work they do. From National Poetry Month to Rumpus Original Poetry to poetry book reviews and essays to our Poetry Book Club, our poetry editors are working tirelessly to shake up the still overwhelmingly white and male poetry landscape.
Poetry editors Cortney Lamar Charleston and Carolina Ebeid have assembled an incredible lineup of poets for this year’s National Poetry Month. This year, 63% of our National Poetry Month poets are women or non-binary, 87% of our poets are writers of color, and 40% identify as LGBTQIA+.
We’ll kick off the month-long celebration on Monday, April 1, with an extraordinary and expansive poem, “Leaves of Grass,” from Justin Phillip Reed. Don’t miss it, and please stick with us through April, because every day we’ll deliver a new voice and vital words.
And, if you are in NYC on Tuesday, April 16 please join The Rumpus and Books Are Magic for a special National Poetry Month event at The Invisible Dog Art Center in Brooklyn! With readings from Andrés Cerpa, Hafizah Geter, Donika Kelly, Rachel McKibbens, Nicole Sealey, and Emily Skaja, and emceed by Cortney Lamar Charleston, we’re certain this will be an extraordinary evening of words and camaraderie.
Be inspired, be moved, and celebrate poetry!
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Rumpus original art by Cyrus Finegan.
