Many poets are confronted with questions about the role of poetry in their lives or in the wider world. “But, what does poetry do?” “Does anyone read poetry anymore?” “So, you’re a poet . . .?” with a long lingering silence afterward, as if the person has encountered a rarefied artifact – or maybe a rhinoceros.

This year, for April Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press seeks to answer this question by asking our contributors to address poetry in the context of teaching and learning. The essays and poems we’ll post over the course of April engage with what poetry teaches, and how in learning poetry (and learning in poetry) we learn something about ourselves, each other, and the wider world. Our contributors shared essays and poems that speak to poetry in multiple contexts, all centering around the idea of teaching.

“Teaching” is understood broadly, as is “learning.” Several poets write about their early poet-mentors and how this early support and knowledge has borne them along in their writing lives. A former Poet Laureate of Wisconsin engages with teaching and poetry as witnessing. The current Poet Laureate of Wisconsin writes about collective and community memory. A teacher-poet reflects on his younger poet-self, meeting a poet he much admired and learning to ignore well-intentioned advice, when that advice urged the poet to step back from his understanding of what poetry could, and should, do. A young writer writes about how she manifests her reality: dogs and desires and visions. What these poets suggest is that we learn through each other – language and poetry is the medium of this learning.

Please join us over this month as we read the words of poets and share the incoming entries from our Student Poetry Contest, highlighting the voices of young poets. Be sure to check back at the end of the month to help us congratulate the winner of our Student Poetry Contest.

–C. Kubasta, BMP Assistant Poetry Editor & contest judge

For April Poetry Month, Brain Mill Press is sponsoring a Student Poetry Contest. For our purposes, “student” includes anyone enrolled either in high school or college, who has not yet graduated with an undergraduate degree.

Please submit 1-3 poems, any style and length. In a short bio, include information about where you attend school, your studies, and your poetic interests. Please also upload an author photo – which we will use it if your poem is selected as either an editors’ pick or a winner. By entering the contest, you confirm the work is your own, and that it hasn’t yet been published (either print or online). We particularly encourage submissions from poets of color, women, and LGBTQIA+ writers.

The editors will select a poem or poems each Saturday in April as the editors’ pick(s), and BMP poetry month coordinator C. Kubasta will choose a grand prize winner. Selected poems will be published on the Brain Mill Press website and social media channels. Editors’ pick poets are awarded with a Brain Mill Press print book (and associated art gift, if available) of their choice. The grand prize winner receives a full set four Brain Mill Press Mineral Point chapbooks from 2015-2016 and associated broadsides. Poets retain all rights to their work.