April is National Poetry Month. This feels entirely appropriate to me as it is a month of dramatic change in nature – with sun and blue skies as well as biting winds and rain. Certainly in the UK we do not have a relaxed transition to Spring and then Summer so it can be confusing.
We are pulled back to winter as well as being aazed by the rich variety of green and colour in leaves and flowers – which keep bursting through!
April can be confusing! And to quote TS Eliot who put it in words I think about each April
April is the cruellest month /mixing memory and desire /Breeding lilacs out of the dead land.
He portrayed April as a time that we get pulled back to memory as well as forward to what we really really want .. creating amazing things from nothing. I think it is a wonderful description of this month.
During April I read some of my poems for entrepreneurs aloud. The zoom audience were very appreciative which was wonderful – especially as I was talking mostly with businesspeople not poets or potential poets.
Your poetry is very healing
Lovely to hear your voice reading
That was wonderful, Jean
It was great to hear the poems read aloud
One of the poems read focuses on the need for the sun to give us energy when we feel cold blooded, like a crocodile. Here is the beginning of it:
I need a crocodile moment
I need a crocodile moment
Feeling cold blooded
Wanting the warm sun
To fill me with energy.
A pause. A respite. No talking
No reading
Just recovery.
For the first time ever I was not excited by
Books at the station bookshop
Advertisements for what’s on the London stage
Raised no spark of interest
I find a small café in a sunny side road …..
(c) Jean Wolfe
The world is very uncertain, anxiety is common and business is by its nature uncertain. Being in anxiety exhaustion and overwhelm is not helpful. My thesis is that the poems help people to relax, not feel alone and see life through a different lens so that they can pick themselves up even after a setback.
If you would like to hear a replay of the event please contact me and I can send it to you.