Gary Snyder turned 94 on Wednesday; I bought my copy of Riprap, & Cold Mountain Poems 55 years ago. Time passes, poetry endures but is ever-changing, like riprap ("Lay down these words/ Before your mind like rocks/ placed solid, by hands....").
I didn't write about National Poetry Month in April, which is an aberration. The only other year I've neglected since 2007 was 2020. Must have had other things on my mind ("A Matter of Emptiness... & Voices"). Upon realizing I'd neglected NPM, I time traveled through SA's archive just to see where I'd wandered before. Here's some riprap I found:
2007: "Poetry Month reminds us that poetry is still a retail labor of love. Over the years, I've met Poetry Month evangelists and detractors among booksellers, readers and writers. Even some poets I know have expressed mixed feelings about the concept, wondering why poetry has to be trotted out like an orphan up for adoption once a year. Why isn't it irresistible?"
2008: "As a bookseller, I also love that those utopian conversations do happen in bookstores. Poetry may not be widely read, but it cannot be stopped because, one way or another, we readers will always have our way with words."
2009: "As I write this column on my laptop, I keep glancing over at my iMac screen like an edgy air traffic controller monitoring takeoffs and landings ("Seamus Heaney, climb and maintain 15,000; Cavafy, you're cleared to land on runway 27 left"). Twitter updates are scrolling by and poetry-themed Tweets take virtual flight in 140 characters or less."
2010: "I'm not a poet, but I am a reader of poetry (and buyer of poetry collections, which is a truly endangered lit-species). I'm a writer, so I think about words all the time, but I'm also deeply intrigued by and engaged in the book trade, so I think about money, too."
2011: "I read the poems I want to read, and take from them what I can. The poems I love have a precision and clarity that I can find in no other art form. I don't know many casual readers of poetry. I have several friends and colleagues who are dedicated readers of poetry; friends who are poets; friends who are poets and dedicated readers of poetry."
2012: "At the 2010 AWP Conference & Bookfair in Denver... I watched Gary Snyder mesmerize 600-plus people in the Colorado Convention Center, telling us: 'Fortunately, my poetry is not that complicated. You don't need to be an architect to walk into a building.' "
2013: "Can you hear it? That's the subtle hum, like an electric current, of poetry being written, read, and spoken nationwide every day. All you have to do is pay attention.... Can you hear it now?"
2014: "Pick a poem, any poem. Well, not just any poem; pick one you have lived with a while. Now, read the poem aloud.... California's DIESEL, A Bookstore has been releasing a new videopoem daily during Poetry Month.... Last year, even I got in on the videopoem action with my signature monotone rendition of Gary Snyder's 'Hay for the Horses.' "
2015: "National Poetry Month is much better than the lack thereof. Cynics insist the public's poetic attention span should be longer than 30 days. Maybe so, but a month of focused attention annually is still better than year after year of general neglect."
2016: "April is the coolest month for poetry, as officially designated even for those of us who mark the spirit of NPM on other calendars: National Poetry Year, National Poetry Decade, National Poetry Lifetime, National Poetry Century, National Poetry Era. Whew! "
2017: "One of my April traditions for many years has been to consider not writing about Poetry Month, but I always succumb to temptation. It's a weakness. I read poetry almost daily; I write about it from time to time here; and poetry occupies significant real estate on my bookshelves."
2018: "By my calculation, poetry readers matter as much as poets do, though the theory may be tempered slightly by my personal history as a bad poet, if good reader, of poems. Nonetheless, I value the chance to discover poets I haven't read before, and Poetry Month increases those odds and opportunities."
2019: "I haven't written about National Poetry Month this year, but that's not because I wasn't paying attention.... In fact, the art of paying attention has been on my mind frequently since last fall, when I heard award-winning poet Ross Gay speaking at the Heartland Fall Forum in Minneapolis about his essay collection, The Book of Delights."
2021: "When I first heard the poet read, at a small event during the summer of 2001, I didn't know his work at all. As soon as he began, however, I leaned into those words to receive the brunt, the wave, the wash of images, the sound of lines forged and bent in unlikely combinations."
2022: "It's still National Poetry Month and I've been reading excellent collections, but I'll admit that some of the best poetry I've encountered has been found in songs on new albums by Willy Vlautin's band the Delines (The Sea Drift) and Dessa (Ides)."
2023: "[F]or the first time I'm celebrating NPM with just one book.... I usually have a stack; I think you should have a stack. In fact, I highly recommend the acquisition of stacks of poetry books year round."
The 17th-century Japanese poet Bashō wrote: "A lifetime adrift in a boat or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home." My poetry journey continues. Happy belated National Poetry Month.
The Whispering Shelf, a new and used bookstore with a general-interest, all-ages inventory, opened last month in Indianapolis, Ind., the Indianapolis Recorder reported.
Amazon is holding a new sales event focused on books, the 
Deryck Whibley and his band SUM 41 played the Brooklyn Paramount on Monday night. Here he's pictured with the Gallery Books team who will be publishing his memoir, Walking Disaster, on October 8: (l.-r.) associate marketing director Kell Wilson, editor Rebecca Strobel, Whibley, his agent, Lisa Gallagher, publicity manager Sydney Morris, and senior publishing manager Eliza Hanson.
"
Rebel Falls: A Novel
Book you've bought for the cover:
Jesse Katz (The Opposite Field), longtime Los Angeles journalist, tackles a true story featuring a daunting number of characters and spanning years and tragedies in The Rent Collectors: Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant LA. With admirable clarity and compassion, Katz unravels a complex narrative that has no easy answers.