As Falvey’s Cat in the Stax, Rebecca writes articles covering a broad range of topics, from academics to hobbies to random events. All the while highlighting how Falvey Library can enhance your Villanova experience!

Happy Wednesday, Wildcats! We’re back with another Author Spotlight. I know life may be getting hectic as we near the end of the semester, but remember to take some time to take a break and relax. This month’s featured writer is a poet, so you can simply take a few minutes to read one poem at a time.

April is National Poetry Month, a time to recognize poets and poetry’s contribution to literature and culture. Established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, National Poetry Month is now one of the largest literary celebrations in the world. Millions of readers, students, teachers, librarians, and publishers participate every year by recognizing poets and reading poetry. Therefore, it seems fitting that this month’s Author Spotlight should feature poet Carolyn Forché, who the University had the honor of hosting as a speaker last week for the 2024 Villanova Literary Festival.

Carolyn Forché is recognized as a “poet of witness,” a term she herself coined. She has published five books of poetry, and much of the poems in these works address political and social issues. However, her first volume, Gathering the Tribes, is a deeply personal work. It was published when she was 24 years-old and recounts experiences from her young adult life. It won the 1975 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Her next release was The Country Between Us which won the Lamont Prize of the Academy of American Poets in 1981. Forché is also the author of The Angel of History, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and The Blue Hour, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her most recent collection of poetry is called In the Lateness of the World and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. The poems in this collection meditate on migrations across oceans and borders but also between the past and present and life and death.

Forché has also written a memoir titled What You Have Heard is True, an account of her experiences in El Salvador during a time of political upheaval. Her visit to El Salvador sparked her work as a human rights activist, which can be seen in many of her early poems. Her anthology, Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness, was praised by Nelson Mandela as “itself a blow against tyranny, against prejudice, against injustice.” For her humans rights work and efforts to preserve memory and culture, she was presented the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture Award in 1998 in Stockholm. 

Carolyn Forché is not only a poet but a translator as well. She has translated the works of Claribel Alegría, Robert Desnos, Lasse Söderberg, Fernando Valverde and Mahmoud Darwish. Her translations of these poets have received great critical acclaim.

For all you poetry lovers out there, Carolyn Forché’s work will make you think and feel as she ties the political and poetic together to create memorable, though-provoking, and heart-wrenching poems.

---

Rebecca Amrick is a first-year graduate student in the English Department and a Graduate Assistant at Falvey Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. A disclaimer that this column is intended for reflection and entertainment (not for academic research, for example), and infuses scholarly content as possible.

It’s officially April, which marks the beginning of National Poetry Month, a month dedicated to the art of poetry–whether it be writing, reading, performing, or studying it. Poetry is an art form whose end product can look and sound a nearly endless possibility of different ways, but its meanings often resonate with us, even for generations. It can also be deeply personal, feeling a certain allegiance to the poets whose words speak to you, whether it be Poe, Shakespeare, Plath, or Angelou. In celebration of National Poetry Month, this Weekend’s Recs will take a dive into the world of poetry, poems, and the poets who create them.

If you have 3 minutes…and like the political commentary of slam poetry, watch the “Lost Voices” slam poem. It may have gone viral a few years ago, but it continues to be relevant today.

If you have 12 minutes…and are a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, listen to late actor Christopher Lee’s narration of “The Raven.” Not only is this poem arguably one of the most iconic of all time, Christopher Lee’s distinctive voice really brings the poem to life.

Bonus: if you want to explore the poetic works of Poe, read this collection of his poetry.

If you have 16 minutes…and like TED Talks, watch this talk by Pages Matam, who blends typical TED-talk-style lecturing about how poetry can offer a unique opportunity to use your voice with interspersed spoken word poetry.

If you have 25 minutes…and want to read academic work on one of the most popular forms of poetry today, read this article about the poetry of modern hip-hop.

If you have 1 hour and 26 minutes…and want to learn more about Poe, watch “Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive” from PBS’s American Masters, available to stream online through Falvey.

If you have 1 hour and 43 minutes…and like the poets of the Beat movement, watch Kill Your Darlings, available to stream online through Falvey. This dark academia film follows the two early Beat poets Allen Ginsburg and Lucien Carr during their time at Columbia University, and like other works in the dark academia sub-genre, it involves murder, romance, and poetry.

If you have 2 hours and 5 minutes…and are a fan of Emily Dickinson, watch A Quiet Passion, available to stream for free on Pluto. Starring Cynthia Nixon, this biopic follows Dickinson from childhood to her death.

Bonus: if you have Apple TV, and want a more comedic and creative take–including her obsession with death–on Emily Dickinson’s life, watch the Dickinson series, starring Hailee Steinfeld. You can also read a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems here.

If you have 4 hours…and like quick-reads, read Dead Poet’s Society, available in our Popular Reading Collection. The book was actually written after the classic movie starring Robin Williams and Ethan Hawke (among others), but the book is still largely a love letter to poetry.

If you have 8 hours…and want to take a dive into the study of poetry, read Poetry by John Strachan, available online through Falvey.

Bonus: if you want to check out books of poetry for some inspiration, browse Falvey’s collection.

For more library resources on poetry, check out the Poetry Subject Guide.

---

Annie Stockmal is a second-year graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant in Falvey Library.

beautiful blooms and morning dew 

Celebrates the work 

Of our favorite poets –  

Frost, Dickinson, Shakespeare, 

Whitman, Cummings, Hughes, 

Many, many more 

Even our poet, McGarrity 

acknowledges 

All the forms, emotions, and hues 

That poetry brings to our hearts 

April, month of 

 

 

By Ethan Shea

Yesterday, April 4, 2023, marked 95 years since the birth of poet, memoirist, civil rights, and women’s rights activist Maya Angelou.

Angelou passed away at the age of 86 in 2014, leaving behind a literary legacy like no other. She was born in 1928 in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. After several moves and a difficult upbringing, at the age of 16, Angelou became the first Black woman streetcar conductor in San Francisco. Soon after, at the age of 17, Angelou gave birth to her son, Guy Johnson.

At one point in her life, Maya Angelou was even a professional dancer, having worked with Alvin Ailey and moved to New York City to pursue a career in dance. After touring Europe and even recording an album in which she sang calypso music, Angelou eventually decided to focus on her writing career.

Angelou worked with civil rights activists such as James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr., even working to organize a march with King. Sadly, after postponing the event, King was assassinated on Angelou’s 40th birthday. A year later, Angelou published her breakout autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.

In 1972, a screenplay written by Angelou, Georgia, Georgia, became the first known screenplay written by a Black woman to be produced. Angelou even wrote the soundtrack for the film!

Angelou was also a mentor of Oprah Winfrey, having met in the 1970s. After Angelou’s death, Winfrey went on to speak at her memorial service along with Michelle Obama.

In addition to her seven autobiographies, Angelou is also a celebrated poet. Although her poetry has not received as much critical attention as her prose, many believe Angelou’s poetry is understudied.

Angelou’s poetry readings, the public and performative aspects of them, are what made them special. Considering April is National Poetry Month, you should definitely consider reading some of Angelou’s poetry if you have not already!

If you have a few free minutes, you can also read this blog commemorating Angelou becoming the first Black woman to be minted on a quarter.

And finally, to celebrate Maya Angelou’s birthday, check out Falvey’s collection of her work.

---

Ethan Shea is a second-year graduate student in the English Department and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Library.

My case in the exhibit, “Poetic License: Seven Curators’ Poetry Selections from Distinctive Collections,” showcases examples of weird and fantastical poetry from Falvey Library’s holdings. Here, the term “weird” is used not colloquially, but rather in reference to the genre of weird fiction, which emerged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Owing much to Gothic horror, weird fiction reinvented the creatures and themes of Gothic horror and other forms of speculative fiction, as portrayed by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe. In fact, H. P. Lovecraft, the most widely known practitioner of weird fiction, considered Poe’s writings the origin of the genre. While writers like Lovecraft are now remembered largely for their contributions to prose, my exhibit case highlights their lesser known, but equally interesting, poetic works. Examples are drawn from Weird Tales, arguably the most popular periodical to ever publish weird fiction and poetry. These poems explore themes that are central to the genre, including the supernatural, the passage of time, and the futility of human pursuits in an indifferent cosmos. Formally, the poems tend to implement consistent rhyme and meter, which amplify the haunting quality of these works.

Some poems in the case are quite literally fantastical, like Lovecraft’s “Night Gaunts,” which describes the dreadful flying creatures that first appeared in the author’s posthumously published novella, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kaddath (1943). Other poems adopt a more grounded approach, such as Sudie Stuart Hager’s “Inheritance,” which examines how folklore can pass fantastical notions from one generation to the next. Meanwhile, Leah Bodine Drake’s “The Steps in the Field” uses fantastical motifs to develop a resonant metaphor about the afterlife, but also emphasizes the idea that some knowledge is dangerous and best left undiscovered—a popular theme in weird fiction and poetry. Together, these and other poems in the case paint a vivid picture of weird and fantastical poetry, its primary thematic concerns, and its formal techniques in the first half of the twentieth century.

The case also displays four covers of Weird Tales issues, illustrated by Margeret Brundage, Matt Fox, and Virgil Finlay. These expressive, colorful images, which depict eerie and otherworldly scenes, nicely complement the similarly evocative poetic works that accompany them.

Lastly, the case includes two works by authors who influenced the poetry in Weird Tales. First and foremost, Poe’s 1845 narrative poem “The Raven,” with its exploration of a depressed man’s desperate attempt to derive meaning from a bird’s repetitive sounds, lays the groundwork for numerous character arcs in weird fiction and poetry. The edition of this poem that is displayed in my case has been digitized and made available on the Villanova Digital Library, and may be read in full here. Furthermore, the case includes the Anglo-Irish author Lord Dunsany’s “A Walk in the Wastes of Time,” a metaphorical poem about communal memory, which was published in The Smart Set in 1917. This title has also been digitized and is available here. (A couple of years after this poem’s publication, Lovecraft would attend a talk by Dunsany in Boston; Dunsany’s influence on Lovecraft’s writings during this period is evident in many of Lovecraft’s works. Comic-book writer Alan Moore portrays the Boston talk in his Lovecraftian series Providence, which serves as both sequel and prequel to Moore’s Neonomicon.)

For more content related to weird fiction and poetry, read our digitized copy of Lovecraft’s personal journal of astronomical observations from 1909 to 1915, as well as this blog article that explains the significance of this rare manuscript. The Digital Library also includes other nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts that explore the occult, including several issues of The Paragon Monthly, a handbook on spiritualism, and other examples.

Please join us on Thursday, April 20, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in Speakers’ Corner, Falvey Library, for the official launch and introduction of “Poetic License: Seven Curators’ Poetry Selections from Distinctive Collections,” followed by an open-mic poetry reading. This ACS-approved event is free and open to the public. In the meantime, make sure to view the full exhibit on the first floor of Falvey, and check the library’s blog for additional articles on individual curators’ cases!

By Julia Wagner

---

Villanova University’s 2023 Literary Festival will be featuring poet Donika Kelly, author of The Renunciations (Graywolf) and Bestiary (Graywolf), for a reading and talk on Thursday, March 30, at 7 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner. Kelly was born in Los Angeles, Calif., and earned an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in English from Vanderbilt University. She currently resides in Iowa City with her wife.

The Renunciations is a winner of the Anisfield-Wolf book award in poetry, and Bestiary is a winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Kelly’s poems have been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review. She is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and member of the collective Poets at the End of the World. She has also received a Lannan Residency Fellowship and a summer workshop fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center. Her work has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Publishing Triangle Awards, the Lambda Literary Awards, and longlisted for the National Book Award.

This ACS-approved event—co-sponsored by the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, the Honors Program, Africana Studies, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Irish Studies, and Falvey Library—is free and open to the public.

Dig deeper and explore the links below for more on Kelly’s work:

• Kelly’s official website
• Kelly’s Twitter
• The Renunciations (2021)
• Bestiary (2016)
• More Poems by Kelly (Poetry Foundation)
• Self-Portrait With Father (New York Times)
• From the Catalogue of Cruelty (The New Yorker)
• Sixteen Center (The New Yorker)
• Calling: Marfa (The Atlantic)
• An Interview with Donika Kelly (West Branch)

---

Julia Wagner ‘26 CLAS is a Communication major from New Hampshire (Go Patriots!). She works as a Communication & Marketing Assistant at Falvey Library.

“I am personally so excited that The Renunciations is part of my Moderns curriculum, and I can’t wait to hear Kelly speak!”

 

---

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore said, “It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”

In life, no matter where you started from or where you’re at, there’s always room to grow. Self-improvement, although sometimes challenging and laborious, can be a fulfilling and worthwhile endeavor. And it’s never too late to start.

As you progress through the semester, remember that it doesn’t always matter how you started, it matters how you finish. There is always time to improve, whether it’s developing better study habits or perfecting your self-care routine. Grow something sustainable and beautiful.

THIS WEEK AT FALVEY

Monday, March 20

Mindfulness Monday | 1-1:30 p.m. | Virtual | Free & Open to Villanova Students, Faculty, and Staff

Shadow of a Taxman: Who Funded The Irish Revolution (1919-21)? | 4-5:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public | Light Refreshments Served

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Tuesday, March 21

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Wednesday, March 22

Spring 2023 Falvey Forum Workshop: Intro to Transkribus | 12-1 p.m. | Virtual | Free & Open to the Villanova Community | Register Here

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Thursday, March 23

Interfaith Human Library: Where Books Talk and We All Learn about Life in a Multi-Faith World | 4-5:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to Villanova Students, Faculty, & Staff | Light Refreshments Served | Register Here

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 4-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

Friday, March 24

Villanova Gaming Society Meeting | 2:30-4:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public

Sunday, March 26

The Learners’ Studio/Center for Speaking and Presentation | 3-9 p.m. | Room 301 | Free

HOLIDAYS THIS WEEK

Today, March 20, is the Spring Equinox, or the first official day of spring. Fittingly, International Day of Happiness is also celebrated today. Take some time to do something that makes you happy today, especially if that something involves spending some time outside (even if the weather isn’t quite the sunny, mid-70s spring day we’re hoping for). And, if you’re in the mood for a sweet treat, you can swing by Rita’s and take advantage of their annual free water ice celebration.

Tomorrow, March 21, is World Poetry Day, a day for appreciating the art and craft of poetry. If you’re the creative-type, you can celebrate by trying your hand at poetry, whether it’s writing a poem about something that inspires you or reciting a piece at a  poetry event. If you’re more of a reader, Falvey has a vast collection of poetry to tickle your fancy, from classics like Poe’s The Raven (which has an amazing narration from the late Christopher Lee here) to more recent staples, such as Milk and Honey. Still looking for more? You’re welcome to attend our 2023 Literary Festival Event featuring poet Donika Kelly next week on March 30.

Feeling bogged down by the pressures of the semester? Give yourself a break from the seriousness by celebrating International Goof-Off Day on Wednesday, March 22. While goofing off certainly won’t solve all your problems, letting some silliness into your day can help relieve anxiety and bring levity during times of stress.

In the mood for some greasy, delicious food? This Friday, March 24, is National Cheesesteak Day. Whether you prefer your cheesesteaks from one of the (tourist) famous chains or from a local mom-and-pop shop, Philly natives and newcomers alike can enjoy this Philadelphia delicacy in celebration of this holiday.

---

Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.

My case for DCDE’s spring exhibit, “Poetic License: Seven Curators’ Poetry Selections from Distinctive Collections” focuses on American dialect poetry in our collections. Dialect poetry is a style of writing that attempts to replicate the sound and speech patterns of people from a particular region or social group. It has often been regarded with mixed feelings – enjoying immense popularity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but existing mostly outside of the literary canon. When we read these depictions of speech today our initial reaction is likely one of cringe-inducing disgust or dismissal. Yet these examples can be used by students, faculty, and researchers to think critically and open discourse on topics such as racism, stereotypes and bias, the immigrant experience (historically, as well as today), cultural appropriation and authenticity, and to promote cultural awareness and sensitivity.

The case highlights three particular poets writing in this style:

 

T. A. (Thomas Augustine) Daly, 1871-1948:

Daly attended Villanova College from 1880-1887 and went on to enjoy a prolific career in publishing and newspapers. Villanova holds several copies of his volumes, which sold widely, reaching numerous editions. Daly was best known for his humorous verse written primarily in Italian-American or Irish-American dialect. Critics and reviews in his day generally noted his portrayals of immigrant characters as distinguished by sympathy and understanding rather than as harmful or offensive.

Learn more about T.A. Daly in a previous online exhibit here: https://exhibits.library.villanova.edu/t-a-daly

 

Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906:

During his short life, Paul Laurence Dunbar published twelve books of poetry, four novels, and four books of short stories. He is regarded as one of the first African American literary figures to gain national and international recognition. Briefly married to Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson (1874-1935), a fellow writer later known for her activism in women’s rights, he died of tuberculosis at age thirty-three.

To a largely white audience, Dunbar’s dialect poetry, written in a style associated with Black speech of the antebellum American South, was seen as “authentic,” though he was born and educated in Dayton, Ohio. For Dunbar, this style of dialect was no more natural than it was for other popular writers also known for the style, such as Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Distinctive Collections holds several copies of illustrated volumes of Dunbar’s poetry first published by Dodd, Mead, and Co. between 1899 and 1904. These lovely editions are illustrated with photographs by the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (now Hampton University) Camera Club, with book cover and interior decorations by noted book designers Alice Morse (1863-1961) and Margaret Armstrong (1867-1944).

Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy,” from Lyrics of the Hearthside (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1899) later inspired the title to Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (1969).

 

James Whitcomb Riley, 1849-1916:

One of the most well-known and best-selling poets at the time of dialect poetry’s height of popularity was James Whitcomb Riley. Known as the “National Poet,” the “Hoosier Poet,” or “Children’s Poet,” for his Indiana-based Midwest regional dialect, his homespun poetry was often humorous and sentimental. Riley began his career writing for newspapers and gained fame performing and reading his poetry on traveling public speaking circuits. Two of his best loved poems are “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphant Annie.”

 

 

Be sure to stop by Falvey’s first floor to see the entire exhibit in person this spring and watch the blog for most posts from the curators!

 

---

Rebecca Oviedo is Distinctive Collections Archivist at Falvey Memorial Library.

 

---

 

This is Mike Sgier, a Distinctive Collections Coordinator here at Falvey Library, and today I’m debuting a new blog series titled The Printed Image, exploring illustrated and pictorial works from Falvey Library’s Distinctive Collections. For this inaugural post, I’m highlighting Illustrated Poems by Lydia Howard Sigourney, with illustrations designed by Felix O.C. Darley.

Published in 1849 by Philadelphia-based Carey and Hart, Illustrated Poems is a collection of over 100 of Sigourney’s poems, serving as a survey of her renowned career up to that the time. Darley, still in the early years of his illustration career, contributed 14 illustrations to the book. Shortly before publication, Darley would move from Philadelphia to New York where his career would continue to thrive, securing his status as a pioneer in American illustration.

Sigourney’s poems selected for this book refer to historical and biblical figures along with more everyday concerns in early 19th century American life. It is these more commonplace subjects that appear most frequently in Darley’s illustrations, a mixture of romanticized environments, portraits, and scenes of daily life.

Darley’s illustrations are tightly composed and highly detailed, with a clean and confident line. But these qualities must also be attributed to the engravers who played a critical role in the creation of these illustrations. While Darley is given top billing as a designer, each illustration is credited with its own engraver. The engraver would cut the designs into metal with a tool called a burin, and the carved lines would then hold ink during printing. This process accounts for the sharp lines and rich tones that appear throughout the illustrations.

 

 

 

 

A frequent subject within Sigourney’s poems is death and mortality. This subject would account for one of the more unique illustrations in the book, titled The Tomb. While the illustration appears at first glance to be a landscape, a deeper mystery pervades the surroundings, with buttresses carved into stone and a marble tomb sinking into the ground, visited by a robed figure. These details complement the haunting tone of Sigourney’s poem, a mediation upon the solitary nature of death.

---

Illustrated Poems may be viewed in Falvey Library’s Rare Book Room during walk-in hours (Wednesdays 9:30-11:30am and Thursdays 2-4pm) or by appointment. The book may also be viewed online through the Falvey Library catalog or the Internet Archive.

Curious to know more about the engraving process? This blog post from the Metropolitan Museum of Art shows a step-by-step guide to this printmaking process.

Finally, to see more poetry selections from Distinctive Collections, please visit the new library exhibit Poetic License, which opens Monday, February 6 on Falvey Library’s first floor.

By Ethan Shea

Everyone knows the saying, “April showers bring May flowers,” but how true is it? According to this weather blog, the saying actually comes from England. Although April is usually a fairly wet month, it isn’t always the rainiest. June and July often compete for the top spot in both the United States and United Kingdom.

All I know is that as I’m writing this blog and looking at the weather forecast, April looks like it’s off to a fairly damp start. To fit the somber mood that comes with this wet weather, I’ve compiled some of rain’s most famous appearances in literature. Everyone knows the best way to read is beside a rain-soaked window, so feel free to check out these recs and read them at your leisure!

Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer

Perhaps the most famous invocation of rain is the opening of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The poem even directly calls upon April specifically as a month that brings rain. In direct contrast to Chaucer, over five centuries later, T.S. Eliot would begin his magnum opus, The Waste Land, with the phrase: “April is the cruelest month,” showing how incredibly deep Chaucer’s influence runs.

“The Rainy Day” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

This somewhat depressing poem is worth reading when you’re down in the dumps on a rainy day. The most famous line from this poem is: “Into each life some rain must fall.” A quote worth remembering when bad weather and anything else going on in your life makes everything seem overwhelming. A little rain just makes the sun feel brighter afterwards!

“April Rain Song” – Langston Hughes

Hughes makes a refreshing change of pace here as he declares his love for the rain with this poem. His ability to find beauty in pools of rain on the sidewalk and enjoy the musicality of raindrops on his roof is inspiring. You just have to respect the ability to take something that may seem bad and turn it into something beautiful.

“Rain Poem” – Emily Dickinson

Although it is referred to as “Fascicle Thirty-Eight” in this collection, “Rain Poem” is another piece that seems not to mind the wet weather. While placing all these poets aside one another, it’s fascinating to see how nature inspires them in such dramatically different ways even when under the same damp conditions.

Hopefully you enjoy these pieces and are inspired to search for some more, as there is an innumerable number of literary works inspired by the rain. Moreover, April just so happens to be National Poetry Month! Not that you needed another reason to indulge in some classic verses.

Happy reading, and stay dry out there…or don’t!

---

Ethan Shea is a first-year English Graduate Student and Graduate Assistant at Falvey Memorial Library.