Isms: Original views on life from rural America

April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate the creative written word form, its expressive ebb and flow pulling you in.

Reading poetry is great. Watching someone bring those words to life, through a spoken word presentation, is amazing.

Poetry is one of my favorite competitive speech events. Where else can you pair Beowulf with one of Jack Prelutsky’s monster poems and come up with rhythm and flow that makes sense? (If you haven’t read any of Prelutsky’s children’s books, do it now. Your kids and/or grandkids will thank you.)

In honor of all things poetry - and because my mom has been...