National Poetry Month 2020: April 19 — LET’S GO
LET’S GO says teen and I agree: sick of home because of corona.
Today’s American Sentence. Pictured are three books I got my spouse for our anniversary; I bought them on sale at AAA before lockdown not realizing their significance two months later.
American Beat Poet Alan Ginsberg came up with the idea of American Sentences: an American sentence is like a haiku in that it has 17 syllables but it’s not three lines in a stanza but one line. As a haiku offers an image that generates emotion and conveys a moment in time, the best Sentences do more than just offer a sentence in 17 syllables.
I learned about American Sentences from Paul E. Nelson who I met at the Taos Poetry Circus in 2000. According to Paul, the key to writing a good American Sentence comes from Ginsberg’s notion that poets are people who notice what they notice. He has been writing one a day since January 1, 2001. Learn more about American Sentences and how to write good ones from Paul here.
art predator 