“April is the cruellest month….” T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece of alienation, “The Wasteland,” starts with this alarming observation, which may ring true if you’re facing missing W-2s, a shoebox of jumbled receipts, and the 15th looming like a vampire lusting for lifeblood! As a time to wing your way into poetry’s swing, however, spring is perfect for discovering contemporary laureates and renewing your relationship with the greats you remember from high school or college. In a world of cut-throat political spin and endless advertising, we need soul food and bedrock truths more now than we did as young adults (and particularly after finishing our taxes)! Finding new meanings in a masterpiece and sharing poems with children or grandchildren can be cherished experiences now and beloved memories for years to come. This April Olsson’s Books and Records at 106 S. Union Street will hold a poetry reading every Thursday at 7:00 pm, so please come to share favorite poems or your own writing.

White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006 by Donald Hall

New Englander Donald Hall, the U.S. poet laureate from 2006-2007, became well-known as a master of poetic forms and free verse. After the death of his poet wife Jane Kenyon, he gained new fame some years ago for the elegies he wrote for her. Here his life-long body of work is well-represented in a CD-accompanied collection. Readers will appreciate his serious, humorous, and whimsical takes on such diverse topics as regret, satire, middle and old age, nostalgia, baseball, his childhood in Connecticut, and adult life on a farm in New Hampshire. As Hall reads his work, these plainspoken and reassuring observations will satisfy long-term fans while winning him new admirers.

Good Poems and Good Poems for Hard Times Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor

Originally read aloud on public radio show The Writer’s Almanac, these two books showcase profound, witty, and passionate pieces meant to affect people busy in their morning routines. In the latter volume, Keillor picked poetry to inspire and brace up listeners struggling with difficult situations. Featuring poets as diverse as William Shakespeare and Charles Bukowski, these two unpretentious and accessible collections will satisfy those who prefer their poetry clear and simple, but not dumbed-down.

The Best Poems of the English Language Selected and with Commentary by Harold Bloom

If you have an abiding love for the literary canon, renowned Yale scholar Harold Bloom’s selections from six centuries will thrill you. Accompanied by his erudite introductions and analyses, this compendium will provide an elegant and substantial replacement for those highlighted Norton anthologies you once scoured.

Poetry Speaks Expanded Eds. Elise Paschen and Rebekah Presson Mosby

One acclaimed recent poetry anthology, Poetry Speaks Expanded, is an update on the bestselling 2001 version. This engaging collection includes three CDs featuring 47 poets reciting 107 of their own poems. These readings reveal personal rhythms, cadences, and emphases that enrich the reader’s understanding of classic works. Accompanying each entry is a short biography on each poet and critical essays on their works by other poets. Including such varied writers as Robert Browning, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes, Dylan Thomas, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, and Allen Ginsberg, this compendium will introduce the non-reader and reader alike to verse that sings and sidles up to you in unexpected ways.

Poetry Speaks to Children Eds. Elise Paschen and Dominique Raccah

An equally enchanting volume aimed at children, this CD-accompanied edition includes child-accessible adult authors such as Robert Frost, Rita Dove, and Nikki Giovanni. In addition, children’s authors including J.R.R. Tolkien, Roald Dahl, X.J. Kennedy, and Mary Ann Hoberman read humorous, serious, and nonsensical poems. After sharing this book with your kids, you may find them clamoring for a bedtime poem instead of a story!

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

Newbery Award winner Creech presents a charming free-verse book narrated by a young boy named Jack, who doesn’t want to write poems for his teacher because he thinks that only “girls do.” Although Jack writes “I think Mr. Robert Frost/has a little/too/much/time/on his/hands,” it only takes days before he succumbs to the magic of poetry’s sound and sense. When he finds a way to express love for his dog Sky through poetry, Jack is hooked. This endearing homage to the power of verse will win over children and the adults who read it with them.

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