2021 Poetry Blast!

April is National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world. This year we're joining the tens of millions of readers, students, teachers, librarians, booksellers, publishers, families, and, of course, poets, in marking poetry's important place in our lives. Our goal is for everyone in our community to read a poem, write a poem, or listen to a poem in April. Why? As editor and teacher Alice Osborn said, "Poetry is like the Windex on a grubby car window—it bares open the vulnerabilities of human beings so we can all relate to each other a little better."

Creative expression through poetry for everyone! Every weekday in April, people from all walks of life can unite behind a common prompt by writing a poem. Sign up here to receive the daily prompts in your inbox, or look here where we will list them. Many thanks to Laura Kasischke for creating the prompts and collaborating on Prompt a Poem. If you're ready to submit a poem, you can submit your poem here. Inspired by the 2020 Life/Lines project at the Center for the Humanities at Washington University. 

Stroll around campus and read a poem! We've teamed up with Michigan Quarterly Review to make poetry part of the campus landscape. Look for poems all over campus in windows, on the diag, on buses, and more. If you'd like to make a night of it, check out the Central Campus Poetry Blast Walking Tour, a poem-by-poem guide to the pop-up poems on central campus.