March 29, 2023

Poetry lovers and aspiring poets can celebrate National Poetry Month with three events taking place at the Amarillo Public Library in April.  APL’s Northwest Branch has planned a Community Poetry Board which will be available throughout the month.  Patrons will be able to stop by the library and create their own original poem from preprinted words displayed in the Library.  Poets are invited to share their creations with #APLpoetry.

Later in the month, award winning poet Mark Neely will visit the Downtown Library for a poetry reading and conversation.  Neely is the author of poetry collections, Beasts of the Hill, Dirty Bomb, and Ticker, which won the Idaho Prize for Poetry.  His awards include an NEA Poetry Fellowship, an Indiana Individual Artist grant, and the FIELD Poetry Prize.  Mr. Neely will read selections of his poetry and talk with the audience about the art of writing poetry.  This event is scheduled for Tuesday, April 18 at 7 PM at the Downtown Library located at 413 SE 4th.  Doors will open at 6:30 and no reservations are required.

Amarillo Public Library will round out the month with a blackout poetry event for teens on Saturday, April 29 at 3 PM.  Blackout poetry is a method of creating works of art and literature by choosing some words on a page and eliminating others.  Some poems are simple—with just words marked out—while others are intricate works of art.  All teenagers interested in art and poetry are welcome to participate in this free event.

National Poetry Month was started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets and has become the largest literary celebration in the world.