Today is World Poetry Day and I bet you’re wondering how you can celebrate this prestigious and important day. Lucky for you, I’m here to help and it’s super easy! The only thing you need to celebrate World Poetry Day is some poetry! You can find literally thousands of poems online. Here are a few of my favorite resources and literary journals for poems:

Poetry Foundation

Hypertrophic Press

Haunted Waters Press

Glass: A Journal of Poetry

There are hundreds more online journals you can find, a quick google search will give you more results than you know what to do with. Another way to celebrate World Poetry Day – find a poem you love send it out on social media – just be sure to tag the poet! We love it when our words connect with others and it is awesome to see someone else sharing our poems.

A really great way to celebrate World Poetry Day – buy a book of poetry. Double points if you buy it from an independent bookstore or directly from the publisher themselves. Triple points if you buy it directly from the poet themselves. I probably don’t have to say this but I will anyway – very few people make a living solely off of writing poetry. Many poets have other jobs, whether they teach, do workshops, or like me – work in a completely unrelated field. But this doesn’t mean that poetry isn’t the thing we’re truly passionate about, but we still gotta pay the mortgage. When you buy a book of poetry directly from the poet you are telling that person you care about their writing and you want to read their words. It means a lot when someone buys my book. (You can snag your copy of my newest chapbook, The Violence Within, here.) Books of poetry also make wonderful gifts so buy a few copies and hand them out to your loved ones.

Another great and easy way to celebrate World Poetry Day: write a review of your favorite book of poetry. Seriously, this means a lot. A lot of poetry is published by independent publishers who don’t have marketing departments – most of the promotion is done by the poets themselves which means lots of times spent researching and emailing and blogging and trying to venues to host poetry readings. A review on Amazon and Goodreads — it can be the same review posted on both websites — gives potential readers an idea of why you loved the book and might entice them to buy a copy and read it themselves. For Amazon algorithms, it takes at least 20 reviews before a book starts showing up as a “recommended for you” book. So take the time to write a review of the book of poetry you love – it doesn’t have to be long or fancy, this isn’t a thesis – just state why you liked it. Believe me, authors really appreciate this. (Here’s my book on Goodreads and Amazon – reviews are greatly appreciated!)

Ultimately, there’s no wrong way to celebrate World Poetry Day.