Poem-a-Day

Every day in April I'm sent a poem by email thanks to the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day program in honor of National Poetry Month. When I was in school, much of my illustration work was inspired by poetry — particularly that of Billy Collins. His poems are so accessible and everyday — I had never really been a poetry fan before hearing him read some of his work on NPR. I immediately went out and found all of his books. It's so nice to again find inspiration in poetry. Yesterday's was Rita Dove's Ludwig Van Beethoven's Return to Vienna. It's usually just one little piece of imagery that sticks with me and it was that way with this one. I won't include the whole poem (you'll have to click through for more… I hope you will!) but here is a bit of it:

Three miles from my adopted city 
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place, 
even the great Danube no more 
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape
by a girl's careless hand.  Into this stillness …
[read more here.]

The Academy also has a history of enlisting fantastic designers to do their
National Poetry Month posters.

This year's is designed by the incredible Paul Sahre. It is available for sale
in the archive, along with past posters by Chip Kidd, Spot Co., Milton Glaser,
Christopher Niemann… you get the idea.

And, finally, as promised yesterday, the snow outside did turn my drawing to flowers… but I am wondering if the piece works better without them. One or the other will make it to my shop by the afternoon. Would love to get some feedback… any thoughts?