National Poetry Month, Part 1

"Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience" from Leave Your Sleep, Natalie Merchant.

Less than half a month to go, poetry lovers. I trust enough time remains to have more than one post acknowledging the month, the form and those among us whom we call by that magical name - poet.

In his 2010 talk at the Ted Conference, Sir Ken Robinson (see earlier post, April 4) mentioned the presentation a day earlier, given by Natalie Merchant about her 2-CD album, Leave Your Sleep, on which she brings music to the words of 19th and 20th Century British and American poets, emphasizing anonymous rhymes, children's lullabies and bits of nonsense verse. Among the writers represented are Robert Graves, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash and Robert Louis Stevenson.

The Ted video includes a number of songs from the CD, as does the You Tube library. If you use the highlighted title link, above, to amazon.com, you will be able to sample each cut.