April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate the written word and the role it plays in our lives.
Dimitri Reyes is a poet from Newark, N.J. He's also an artist-in-residence at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and the author of the book "Every First & Fifteenth."
He joined Morning Edition host Michael Hill to talk about what brought him to poetry, how picture prompts in grade school brought forward his love of writing, and the value of storytelling in verse.
It's also the start of our poetry month challenge! Please send us your poems! Our theme this year is "normalcy," whatever that means to you in this particular moment. You can submit your poems via Twitter (@wnyc) or email them to wnycpoetry@gmail.com. We may read your poem on the air.
Oye! This is an apartment building ode.
Dimitri Reyes
Oye! This is an apartment building ode.
But not just any ode, an ode about breathing,
walking, jumping, running, skipping people.
An ode to a time where we’d remember what
odes felt like to read outside. An ode about
oding so hard it boxes itself into a sonnet.
Harder than bus stop benches and light rail
seats, taxes, and systemic poverty. The oding
of this poem is an apartment building sonnet
about people stacked up like bricks like words
in a sonnet. People that will tap your shoulder
to make sure you’re listening to the fact that this
poem is a token, a favor, a shirt off their back.
Oye! This is The Apartment Building Ode.