We can’t think of a better way to celebrate April as National Poetry Month than by encouraging you to read the work of one of our own City Dads Group members.

Ben Berman, a member of our Boston Dads Group, recently had published  his second collection of verse. Figuring in the Figure (Able Muse Press) covers many topics in its 88 pages but the final section of the book covers fatherhood, including birthing and baby care classes, the arrival of his child, and those first precious months of life. His work, including the non-parenting poems, is filled with wry humor and familiar scenes like this one that opens the piece “Nothing Archaic about It”:

“She walks and cries out with an onslaught
of needs, beckons us like the torso
of Apollo: You must change your daughter.”

Figuring in the Figure has garnered great reviews. “Both expansive and structured, the interwoven stanzas allow him to form and reform probing questions of identity without ever forsaking a deep musicality,” raved Beth Ann Fennelly, the poet laureate of Mississippi. “His observations are enriched with various kinds of humor … This book is wise and wonderful.”

Berman, a high school teacher and poetry editor for Solstice Literary Magazine, also writes a monthly “Writing While Parenting” online column about how the two jobs overlap and intersect.

Berman lives in the Boston area with his wife and daughters. His poetry collection, Strange Borderlands, won the 2014 Peace Corps Award for Best Book of Poetry and was a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Awards.

You can purchase Figuring the Figure here.

I am a big fan of both poetry and children and now is the time to celebrate them both — April is National Poetry Month!

The Academy of American Poets first declared National Poetry Month in April 1996. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture.

The Academy of American Poets’ website serves as a hub for information about local poetry events during the month, so be sure to check it out for local events you and the family can enjoy. The organization also provides free educational resources to teachers for classroom celebrations and activities, and commissions an annual festival poster with almost 150,000 copies distributed to schools, libraries, and community centers for free. In the past, these collectible posters have been designed by noted graphic designers such as Chip Kidd and Milton Glaser.

To help parents celebrate National Poetry Month with their little ones, I’ve compiled some excellent web resources for children’s poetry (reading and writing) below. Also here’s one of my favorite poems: Eating Poetry by Mark Strand. Strand passed away last year, but this poem of his lives on, and it is a great reminder of the joy of reading (and eating) poetry.

Eating Poetry is one of the first poems I remember reading and completely loving. It makes several leaps of metaphor that just make perfect sense to me, and it has left me hungry for more poetry ever since.

If you’ve got other resources to add, leave them in the comments below.

Poems written mostly by adults:

• Poetry Foundation poems for children
• 62 Poems for Kids
• Poets.org – Poems kids like
• Writers Digest: The Best Poems for Kids

Poems written mostly by kids

• Lori’s Webs: Young Poetsages 5 to 18
• AndreaShavick.com: Young Poets page

How to write poems with kids

• Kenn Nesbitt’s Poetry Writing Lessons for Kids
• Judy Helton’s teaching poetry