National Poetry Month

April 2023 is National Poetry Month!

The League of Canadian Poets invites you to celebrate the 25th National Poetry Month this April 2023!

What will you read this National Poetry Month? What events will you organize, attend? Will you start your own poetry writing project? Will you write your first poem? Will you share your poetry online for the first time?

This year, we celebrate NPM with the theme JOY!

Read the NPM23 Press Release

joy is. reading by a window with a soft blanket. an old plant with a new bloom. a completed to-do-list. the first big snowfall. banana bread in the oven. the squeak of sand under bare feet. a cat purring on my lap. finding the perfect GIF to send to the groupchat. a hot cup of coffee. filling the page with unplanned words. freshly painted nails. still and quiet moments of solitude, when all there is to do is rest. cold, crisp mornings. the careful turn of an old book’s pages. a fresh bowl of ramen. feeling blessed and loved. setting a personal best. my favourite pair of sneakers. planting vegetables in the garden. sitting on the couch doing nothing, partner on one side, dog on the other. the crack of a home run. a warm cup of milky Earl Grey. a sunset from a plane window.

What does JOY mean to you?

NPM23 Poster: Illustrated image depicting material interpretations of joy: a dog, a cat, cup of tea, guitar, book, pen, hammer, gardening, flowers, nature, food, etc.
NPM 2023: JOY Poster, designed by Megan Fildes

#NPM23 Social Media Graphics, Poster and Bookmark 

We are so excited to share National Poetry Month 2023 Poster, designed by Megan Fildes!

We are delighted that we are out of stock of NPM Posters and Bookmarks! Thank you to our literary partners, libraries and schools who have ordered over 1000 posters and 16,000 bookmarks that will be distributed during April!

Looking to decorate your classroom, community space, library or home with NPM23 fun?

Download our NPM23 Social media graphics for your own use!

NPM Blog

Follow along all April for our special NPM Blog collection On Joy, featuring bespoke essays by Canadian poets reflecting on the theme of joy.

Join the #NPM23 Conversation!

Share your NPM activities and join the conversation by tagging us on Twitter or Instagram @CanadianPoets, and use the official #NPM22 hashtag.

While you’re planning, check out some of our resources if you need a place to start: our “Get Involved” blog post suggests many ways to celebrate April, from hosting an event to setting a 30-day writing challenge; as well as suggested NPM activities for young readers that can be facilitated by educators, parents, and librarians; and we rounded up a few little ways to work poetry into your day-to-day here!

Poetry Pause: JOY

All month long, Poetry Pause will be showcasing poetry about JOY!

Poem in Your Pocket Day Returns 

On April 28, 2023 we will celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day across Canada. The day encourages people to select a poem, carry it with them, and share it with others throughout the day. 

Get Involved with National Poetry Month

Every year come April, we get so excited to read and promote poetry for four solid weeks as we celebrate National Poetry Month! There are so many ways to celebrate poetry! The LCP loves seeing how all of you take part in the celebrations. If you want to do something special for National Poetry Month this year but you aren’t sure where to start, check out our suggestions for some popular ways to get involved!

Celebrate Online

While the League does prepare content to celebrate poetry, we’re always looking to see what else is going on! Using our hashtags and tagging us are the best way to share your NPM celebrations! We are @CanadianPoets on Twitter and Instagram, and we’ll be following the hashtag #NPM23 this year and sharing all the poetry joy from coast to coast.

Subscribe to Between the Lines Newsletter from LCP for all your NPM news!

NPM Events

See our event calendar of events during NPM that are supported or funded by the League. We are thrilled to see all the incredible ways that poets and poetry-lovers are coming together in digital spaces this National Poetry Month. We are thrilled to see all the incredible ways that poets and poetry-lovers are coming together in digital spaces and in-person this National Poetry Month.
Do you have an NPM Event coming up? Let us know and be featured in the next Weekly NPM Newsletter!

Host an event

(visit our resources page for tips on organizing a literary event)

  • Poetry reading
    • Invite between one and five local poets to share 5-15 minutes’ worth of their own poetry.
  • Open mic night
    • Sometimes open mic nights also feature one or two pre-booked readers who will read for slightly longer than the open mic readers, but not always! This could be strictly poetry, or could be a space for fiction writers, musicians, comics, and other intergenre artists to come and share their work. Open mic spots are usually about 3 minutes long: enough time for a song, a long poem, or a few shorter poems. Open mic nights usually last about an hour to an hour and a half, with breaks.
  • Interview or panel
    • Invite a poet (or a few) to discuss a new project of theirs! This is also a great way to talk about the creative process, and to hear how a popular poet may weigh in on the latest literary goings-on in Canada. Be sure to leave room for a Q&A session!
  • Book launch
    • Spring is always chock full of book launches happening from coast to coast. You may be able to host a book launch for a local poet, or even organize a multi-book launch for several poets. If you are interested in organizing a book launch, consider contacting publishers ahead of time to see if they may be able to help you coordinate with the author!
  • Themed events
    • The theme for NPM 2023 is JOY and we encourage you to get creative with how you incorporate it! 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. 

Share and Create

NaPoWriMo

National Poetry Writing Month is a popular riff on NaNoWriMo (November’s National Novel Writing Month), although they are not officially associated with each other. Well, NaPoWriMo isn’t official at all, but it unofficially challenges writers to compose a poem a day throughout April to celebrate NPM. You can also sometimes find this challenge called 30 Days of Poetry. Many writers fall into the challenge free-form, writing about anything and everything, but others find or create guides to get them through the month: on April 1, write a poem about your childhood; on April 2, write a poem about….

Today’s Poem

Usually discoverable on social media under the hashtag #todayspoem, this initiative encourages users to share a poem—original or not—every day throughout April. You can find some readers and writers using the hashtag year-round, but its popularity surges in NPM and it’s a great way to discover new poets and performers through social media.

Reading challenge

Individuals or groups can use NPM as an opportunity to set a poetry reading challenge for the month—or for more than just April! Set the challenge in a way that suits your lifestyle and will be a fun way to fit more poetry into your life. Whether it’s challenging yourself to discover and read one new book of poetry in April, or whether you want to read two books a week, a reading challenge will take your poetry consumption to the next level. You could even take it further and post about what you’re reading, or consider starting a National Poetry Month book club!

Explore

National Poetry Month aims to celebrate poetry in all its forms: if you usually like to read formal poetry, try checking out something different like a novel in verse, or poetry that challenges and subverts forms; if you have only ever loved poetry in book form, try checking out a spoken word showcase or a poetry slam; if you’re a performance poet to your core, try diving into a chapbook and seeing the poetry light up those hand-sewn pages. And if you don’t do poetry? What better time to start than now? The internet is full of incredible lists of recommendations for every non-poetry-lover: feminist poetry, spoken word poetry, emerging poets, political poets, and more. We promise poetry isn’t dead. We promise there’s a poem just for you, and we know someone wants to help you find it.

 


National Poetry Month began in the US in 1996, spearheaded by the Academy of American Poets on the steps of a post office in New York City. There, the story goes, Academy staff members handed out copies of T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Waste Land,” which begins, “April is the cruellest month…” to individuals waiting in line to mail their tax returns. Established in Canada in 1998, NPM now brings together schools, publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, and poets from across the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in Canada’s culture.

Find all of our NPM posts on the NPM blog!

 

Archives

2022: Intimacy

2021: Resilience

2020: A World of Poetry

2019: Nature

2018: 20TH ANNIVERSARY

2017: TIME

2016: THE ROAD

2015: FOOD

2014: POETRY CITY

2013: FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY!

2012BALANCE

2011: NURTURE/NOURRIRE

2010: CLIMATE CHANGES

2009: POETRY PLANET

2008: POETRY WITHOUT BORDERS

2007: POETRY IN THE FUTURE

2006: LCP CELEBRATES 40 YEARS

2005 POSTER (no theme)

2004: POETS IN OUR COMMUNITIES