It’s April, which means rain showers (that’ll hopefully bring May flowers), Easter, warmer days, and… National Poetry Month!  Every year, I like to get in on the action by making an effort to read more poetry and share some of what I’m reading here.  Last year I celebrated by dedicating my month to reading a new-to-me poet, Anna Akhmatova, in what proved to be a very enriching experience.  Peanut also got in on the action, presenting When We Were Very Young, by A.A. Milne, in a special National Poetry Month edition of “Peanut’s Picks.”  The year before, I shared one of my favorite poems, by my very favorite poet, to celebrate both National Poetry Month and Easter, and I extended the celebrations a bit by using another poem to make a very special announcement.

This year, I have plenty of poetical fun planned to celebrate National Poetry Month!  You can expect another special edition of “Peanut’s Picks,” and of course, some e.e. cummings.  And since I enjoyed exploring the works of a new-to-me poet so much last year, I’ve decided to do the same thing this year.  For 2014, I’ve chosen:

Emily Bronte!

If you’ve been reading my blog for more than five minutes or so, you probably know that I’m a big fan of Charlotte and Anne Bronte.  Jane Eyre is my favorite book, and I love Anne’s works The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey as well.  Of the three readalongs in which I’ve participated, two have been devoted to Charlotte’s work.  In May of last year, I read Villette with Beth and Amal, and in September I participated in the Septemb-Eyre readalong hosted by Kerry.

So yes, I love me some Bronte sisters.  Except, I just can’t get behind Wuthering Heights.  I’ve tried, goodness knows I have.  I’ve read Wuthering Heights three times now and disliked it more each time.  So much so that when Maggie of An American in France announced that she was hosting a Wuthering Heights readalong, I begged off.  I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it and I didn’t want to spoil the readalong for others.

I really, really want to like Emily Bronte’s work.  I’m tired of giving the caveat “except for Emily,” when I share my Bronte love with fellow readers.  So I’m going to see if I get along better with her poetry.  I expect I will.  The only redeeming quality that I found in Wuthering Heights was its forbiddingly romantic (or romantically forbidding) descriptions of the wild natural world that surrounded the Heights.  Emily’s sensibilities and her attraction to the remote and desolate strike me as a perfect quality for some seriously intense, brooding poetry.  Basically, all of the Bronte, none of the Heathcliff?  That’s what I’m hoping for.  I’ve been flipping through the copy of her collected poems that I acquired for this month (the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, which is the same edition I picked up for Anna Akhmatova last year) and so far, I’m a big fan.  The challenge will be to read a little Emily Bronte each day this month and hope that by the end of the month, I’m a convert – if not to her one and only novel, then to her poetry.

Here’s a little taste:

The night is darkening round me
by Emily Bronte
(source: The Poetry Foundation)

The night is darkening round me,
The wild winds coldly blow;
But a tyrant spell has bound me,
And I cannot, cannot go.

The giant trees are bending
Their bare boughs weighed with snow;
The storm is fast descending,
And yet I cannot go.

Clouds beyond clouds above me,
Wastes beyond wastes below;
But nothing drear can move me:
I will not, cannot go.