Luxuriate in blooming verse: A case for expanding National Poetry Month into a full season

Outside of the April 10, 2025, action at the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, it was a sunny day and the tulips were in bloom and squirrels played upon the lawn. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

National Poetry Month has come and gone, and the flowers are still blooming, and the poets are still reading. It came and went so fast that I am not sure any of us were actually able to sit with the poems floating by us — or if we stopped long enough to smell the sweet scent of flowers, planted and envisioned.

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the beloved monthlong celebration of poetry and poets. In 1996, the Academy of American Poets launched the program to celebrate the vital role poetry plays in our culture. Now, National Poetry Month is celebrated internationally. Programs from the Academy of American Poets included “Poetry & the Creative Mind,” “Poem in Your Pocket Day,” “Dear Poet” and “National Poetry Month Poster.”

So much poeticizing, so little time.

National Poetry Month has created opportunities for poets to showcase their work at locally organized in-person reading events, online virtual events, in larger university settings with institutional support and at festivals. Open mics pop up in April like volunteer flowers in a backyard garden.

As a self-proclaimed traveling poet living in Kansas, I am grateful for every opportunity to share poetry in each community I visit during April. It’s my busiest month of the year outside Hispanic Heritage Month. I travel far and wide. My favorite April event this year was the inaugural “Petal & Poems” at the Botanica’s Tulipfest in Wichita, hosted by the Kansas Authors Club.

I can’t think of a better venue to read poetry than Shakespeare’s Garden at Botanica during Tulipfest. Thousands of tulips in every imaginable hue lined the pathways. Each step I took was imbued with extraordinarily radiant beauty. It’s a sight to see in person.

More flowers mean more beauty, and the same is true about poetry. More poetry means more beauty in the world.

The term for a flower in a state of bloom is efflorescence. A lover of flowers is called an anthophile, from the Greek antho (flower) and phile (lover). It’s a term used to describe bees that are known for their symbiotic relationships with flowers — they can’t live without each other.

Multiple terms are used to describe lovers of poetry, such as aesthete, versophile, and rhapsophile, but not one of them is universally recognized as the official term for lovers of poetry.

I’d like to introduce a new term in honor of National Poetry Month. Apriophile: a person drawn to poetry and flowers primarily in April, when both are at their highest concentration.

Apriophiles can describe their behaviors during National Poetry Month metaphorically and metaphysically as “beeing.” If you attend a poetry reading, you are “beeing.” If you plant flowers for spring, you are “beeing.” If you like to visit gardens this time of year, you probably like to go “beeing.” You and I could “bee” together next poetry season at Poems & Petals at Botanica if you want to.

I want to do more “beeing” next year, for longer, not just a single month. I’d like to extend poetry month into a poetry season. Poetry season should be three months and begin in March. The birth flower for March is the daffodil (Narcissus).

I know spring’s arrival is nigh when green daffodil shoots appear, goosenecking into the sky.

Daffodils are commonly associated with poets thanks to the Greek botanist Theophrastus, who wrote around 300 BCE the “Historia Plantarum” (or “Enquiry into Plants”) in which he called a spring-blooming version of a daffodil Narcissus poeticus.

Poetry season should end when May ends. The primary birth flower for May is Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis). In floriography — the language of flowers — Lily of the Valley symbolizes sweetness, humility and a return to happiness. I think a return to happiness is a good place to end poetry season, after three months of constant “beeing.”

It seems to me, a natural conclusion.

We should consider spending more time reading the flowers during poetry season. They could teach us a lot from March to May, when “beeing” is easiest for everyone. Three months of just “beeing” around poems, poets and petals sounds absolutely lovely. Sign me up.

Huascar Medina is a poet, writer, and performer who lives in Topeka. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.