We are so grateful to Kate Hargreaves for her amazing work designing our 2017 National Poetry Month bookmarks and posters! Our 2017 theme is time, and Kate interpreted this in a unique way that delighted all of us here at the League when we saw her first drafts:

When I thought about what “time” meant to me as a book designer and someone who has worked in the publishing industry as well as a writer, the thing that stood out was the idea of process and time as understood through rounds of edits, re-writes, and re-designs.

This sent us back to the drawing board in our own NPM planning, and we’re now excited to be organizing a wide variety of time-related content for our blog this April. If you are planning a project or event for NPM17, we encourage you to consider relating it to the theme of time! If you run a regular literary event, we hope you’ll consider making your April event poetry-themed and maybe even time-themed. Poets could read work they composed when they were younger, or could read first drafts of now-published work; you could pair established and emerging poets to read their own or each others’ work and discuss how they inspire or influence each other; consider honouring Canada’s history and inviting Indigenous poets to read at your event. Canada also celebrates its 150^th birthday this year! We look forward to seeing the creative ways event organizers incorporate time and this milestone into their events this National Poetry Month. For suggestions on how to get involved, you can visit our new Get Involved page or download or share this poster.

All of our NPM17 visual materials are free to download, and we hope you use and share them widely! If you would like physical posters or bookmarks for your classroom, library, office, or event, please email [email protected]. You can also contact Nicole for high-res and print-ready files.