National Poetry Month, 2010

As I've said before, April may be "the cruelest month," but it's also National Poetry Month. Over the last three years, BillyBlog flourishes in April.

In 2007, I posted a "Poetry in Motion" poster for each of April's thirty days. In some cases, more than one per day.

In 2008, I posted thirty favorite poems from thirty separate poets to honor the month.

Last year, as BillyBlog meandered into an "occasional post" blog, and its spin-off, Tattoosday, skyrocketed in popularity. So last year, we launched the Tattooed Poets Project, which was an amazing experience for me, and, I hope, for our readers as well.

This year, I was going to put all content exclusively over at Tattoosday. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I like the dichotomy of the two blogs. BillyBlog affords Tattoosday readers the chance to explore poetry. If someone is interested in the poem over there, they'll come here.

So, for the second April in a row, we will post thirty poems by thirty different poets (maybe more).

Each one of the poems posted in April will have been contributed by a tattooed poet. The verse may not be needle-and-ink-related, but the writer initially came to this section of the blogosphere to share their body art on Tattoosday.

I am hoping this double-barreled blog venture will be successful. I had some assistance from Stacey Harwood over at the Best American Poetry blog, who helped sound the clarion call for volunteers. This year, also, our first contributor Theresa Edwards, was also a great referrer of poets. In addition, dozens of other poets referred me to those among them who were inked. Facebook proved to be an excellent networking tool as I reached out to poets across America and invited them to participate. I thank, in advance, everyone who contributed and all those who merely pointed me in the right direction.

Enjoy!