Allons! we must not stop here…

—from Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road”

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For the first time, the League will be participating in National Poem in Your Pocket Day, an annual initiative organized by the Academy of American Poets. Poem in Your Pocket Day will take place on Thursday, April 21! Find out more at poets.ca/pocketpoem.

Find a list of National Poetry Month events taking place across Canada here!

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Download a PDF of the 2016 National Poetry Month poster here.

Find more NPM16 graphics here.

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The road will take you anywhere.

It’s time to celebrate the roads we travel, the roads we wish to travel, the roads we’ve found and made and cherished for decades–this year, National Poetry Month will celebrate the road. Since 1998, the League of Canadian Poets has been bringing together schools, publishers, booksellers, libraries, literary organizations, and poets from across the country to celebrate poetry in Canada—in 2016, we’ll look at the roads that brought us here, and we want to know about the roads most important to your literary journey. Even more, we want to know about the roads in your future, in our future, in the future of poetry in Canada.

Perhaps, this morning, you walked to work. Maybe you drove. Maybe you took a bus to school; maybe you stayed home, on the road to recovery. You travelled today, certainly, from point A to point B through a map of your choosing—to the office, over a mountain, on a detour or a rest stop. Maybe your map shows the roads of your adventures (real, imagined), maybe the branches of your family (given, chosen), maybe the chaos of a road not yet determined. But you found a road, or you made one, and you made another journey today; and you’ll make another journey tomorrow.

Join us as we celebrate the timeless journey of poetry this National Poetry Month. Take poetry on the road, or stay home and let poetry take you on the road. Pinpoint the important markers on your literary map—favourite place to read, to write; favourite writer’s hometown, favourite book’s setting; favourite journey, fact or fiction or figment.  Help us map out poetry’s vital place in Canadian culture from Victoria to Charlottetown to Iqaluit, from classics to contemporary, from Poets Laureate in Parliament to you in your armchair.

Follow along and share your National Poetry Month celebration over on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Tag us @CanadianPoets or use the hashtag #NPM16 to get involved! We encourage you to plan readings and events throughout April to celebrate National Poetry Month and the road. Share information about your event using our hashtag #NPM16, or e-mail us the details of your event so we can spread the word!

Download a PDF with more information about National Poetry Month 2016 here.

Pour les matériaux en francais, cliquez ici.

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Plan an event

We are happy to promote all events happening throughout National Poetry Month, not just those readings we provide funding for. If you’re planning an event for NPM16, e-mail admin@poets.ca with details and a link to your event and we will share it through Facebook and Twitter. Make sure you check out the hashtag #NPM16 to find events happening near you! You can also find a listing of National Poetry Month events happening across Canada at poets.ca/npm/2016events.