It's a Poetry Party!

April is National Poetry Month, which makes it an ideal time to go to your bookshelves and pick out your favorite verse, sonnet, ballad, haiku, or limerick. Predating modern history, poetry stands as one of the earliest forms of artistic expression with the Epic of Gilgamesh being one of the oldest recorded poems dating to circa 2100 BCE. With poetry being so essential to our history, it’s of no surprise that no matter where you go you can find rich, poetic traditions in any place or culture, including Mississippi. With such an abundant and rich literary history, Mississippi no less offers its own voices to the poetic craft, including works from the likes of Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams, as well as other unique voices such as Etheridge Knight, Charles Henri Ford, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil. You'll find some suggestions of local Mississippi poets below, as well as a breakdown of poetry styles.

Haiku

A haiku is a short, historic form of Japanese poetry which is identified by its small size, consisting primarily of three lines in a uniform order of 5-7-5 syllable lines. 

Free Verse 

A modern and quite popular style, free verse follows no traditions and operates in a manner that defies other styles. Free verse can choose to rhyme or not, can be any length, and generally can be about anything the author wishes. 

Sonnet

Made popular by none other than William Shakespeare, these poems are usually 14 lines in length and often reflect on themes of love. Two rhyme schemes are popular in Sonnets, the Petrarchan sonnet which follows an ABBA ABBA CDE CDE scheme and the Shakespearean sonnet which follows ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. While these are often employed structures of sonnets, you will find some that play outside of these rules.

Ballad

Another ancient form of poetry, Ballads often tell dramatic stories. Originating in Europe, many ballads were passed down between generations and were regularly accompanied by music. Similar to Sonnets, Ballads often follow a set scheme such as ABAB or ABCB, a scheme that inspires the format of most modern pop songs.

Limerick

Limericks are comedic and occasionally crass poems which were popularized in the 19th century. Their set rhyming scheme is AABBA, where the A lines are lengthier as opposed to shorter B lines. They are often constructed in a way that the final line serves as a punch line. 

Poets:

• Margaret Walker Alexander
• A.H. Jerriod Avant
• Samuel Alfred Beadle
• Katherine Jones Bellamann
• Maxwell Bodenheim
• Virgia Brocks-Shedd
• Hubert Creekmore
• Derrick Harriell
• Angela Jackson
• Etheridge Knight
• William Alexander Percy
• Sterling D. Plumpp
• Maude Leet Prenshaw
• Beah E. Richards
• Irwin Russell
• Natasha Trethewey
• Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
• Claude Wilkinson
• Richard Wright
• Al Young
• Billie Jean Young
• Ahmos Zu-Bolton II

Check out these authors and more at your local Mississippi public library or here at the Mississippi Library Commission.

Zach Burton

Cataloging Librarian