Fools & Poets

April Fools Day was a delight! It's good to have a day when one can drop all pretenses and just be what you are! Because April is National Poetry Month , it was a chance to celebrate FOOLS & POETS all at the same time! Are those two words synonymous? Because I fit into both categories, I'll refrain from commenting.

My sister, Joanne Cage, an Alabama poet of some renown, read her poems at our local library today to kick off our month long National Poetry Month festivities.

Here's Joanne, looking quite adventurous and stunningly beautiful as a cowboy. Her creative inclinations kicked in at an early age, and she's been creative and witty ever since.

Here's another of my favorite poets, Robert Frost. Mr. Frost and Joanne share some similarities in writing style and subject matter, both writing about passions of the heart. To a large extent, those passions have to do with trees, leaves, home and seasons, and fragile melancholy memories.

I believe Robert F. was a bit more irascible than Joanne. One of the funniest stories I ever heard was in a biography of Robert Frost, concerning his misbehaviour on two separate occasions while fellow poet, Carl Sandberg, was attempting to read his poetry to an audience. In the first incident, Robert Frost seized a huge broom and chased a wayward bird around the auditorium, diverting all attention away from Sandberg. In the second incident, funniest of all and hardest to explain, while sitting in the audience during a Sandberg reading, Frost set a bunch of papers on fire, which subsequently ignited an empty chair, whilst Carl S. diligently attempted to press on with his reading. Robert, what were you thinking?

Other great poets worth checking out are Edwin Arlington Robinson, Ambrose Bierce, William Butler Yeats, Countee Cullen, James A. Emanuel, and Rupert Brooke.

Rupert's one of my favorites.

And then there's always Dobby Mauby. Samuel Dobbs Mauby ... he's a nut.