Legendary Chicago poet Carl Sandburg once said “poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” Less-legendary second son Benedict Bridgerton also once said “poetry is the art of revealing precious truth through words.”
Whether historic or fictional, we celebrate poets and their words every April as part of National Poetry Month. A tradition of the Academy of American Poets since April of 1996, “National Poetry Month reminds the public that poets have an integral role to play in our culture and that poetry matters,” according to their official website https://poets.org/. “Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and—of course—poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.”
This year, DePaul University Library is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem-A-Day display in the entrance of the John T. Richardson Library on the Lincoln Park Campus. Come by to check out a new poem each day, most recommended by one of our staff librarians or Peer Research Tutors. Each poem will direct you to where you can find more works by that poet.
To browse volumes of poetry available at DePaul, head to the following Dewey Decimal call numbers, all of which will be located on the fourth floor of the John T. Richardson Library:
- North American/Native American poetry, 811
- African poetry, 821
- British poetry, 821
- Indian poetry, 821
- German poetry, 831
- French poetry, 841
- Italian poetry, 851
- Spanish, Portuguese poetry, 861
- Mexican / Latin American poetry, 861
- Latin poetry, 871
- Greek classical poetry, 881
- Persian poetry 891
- Russian poetry 891
- Chinese poetry 895
- Japanese poetry 895
To find more poems, information about poets, and activities designed for National Poetry Month, visit the National Poetry Month website or search our collection with LibrarySearch.
Chicago is also home to the Poetry Foundation, an “independent literary organization committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture [who] exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience” that “works to raise poetry to a more visible and influential position in our culture.” You can visit the Poetry Foundation’s Library, located at 61 W. Superior Street, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. For more information, go to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/library.