Why Poetry, Why Now: Celebrating National Poetry Month

By January Gill O’Neil

All poetry is local.

I believe poetry has the power to connect us—to history, place, and each other. While it’s hard to imagine poetry changing the world, I know it can change one person, offering a moment of reflection, joy, or understanding. My work finds the extraordinary in the ordinary, celebrating the beauty in the everyday while acknowledging the weight of history. Through teaching, mentorship, and arts administration, I have dedicated my career to making poetry not only accessible but necessary.

These challenging times have left many of us downright weary. We find ourselves searching for connection and meaning amid constant demands and the uncertainty of daily life. Poetry offers the space to pause, reflect, and envision new possibilities.

Poetry matters because it causes us to take a beat and consider the world not just through information but through emotion, memory, and rhythm. Whether it’s a moment of stillness found in reading a sonnet, or the inspiration in contemporary verse, poetry illuminates the ordinary and challenges us to see the world anew.

For those of us in Salem and North of Boston, Glitter Road (CavanKerry Press), my latest poetry collection, explores themes of place, history, and resilience, reminding us of poetry’s power to bear witness to our personal and collective stories. It sits alongside the works of other local poets—members of the Thursday Poets collective—whose words help shape our understanding of what it means to be human. Books such as Salem Poet Laureate J.D. Scrimgeour’s Lifting the Turtle (Turning Point) and Marblehead poet Jennifer Martelli’s Psychic Party Under the Bottle Tree (Lily Poetry Review Books), along with Salem poet and Massachusetts Poetry Festival Director M.P. Carver’s collection Hard Up (Lily Poetry Review Books) illustrates how poetry draws from lived experiences to create narratives of transformation and change.

Creative Collective has long celebrated the intersection of art and community. Poetry plays a vital role in that dialogue. It reminds us that in times of struggle or celebration, the arts—particularly poetry–inspire us to act with compassion and conviction.

I leave you with this poem that inspires me every day: Thursday Poet Kathleen Aguero’s “Hard Work” from her book World Happiness Index (Tiger Bark Books). Her last stanza is stunning.

Hard Work

Hope springs eternal, but
I couldn’t imagine how
hope, before it gets to that bubbling place,
forces itself through miles of dirt packed hard,
then around, over, under rocks,
willing itself not to dry up in the desert
or to merge with the sewer of a city street,
waiting for frozen prairie to thaw,
resisting the warm and mindless absorption
of mud, moss, sand, swamp
until it finds the small trembling
where, welcome or not, it gathers the last of its strength
and breaks through to the surface
the way a laboring woman, stinking,
exhausted, summons one last grunt and push
to force the baby into the world
where it takes its first, sharp breath.

I bow my head to the hard work of hope.
I let it place its dull and heavy hand upon my neck.
I submit to its dour blessing.
I give up. I begin
its thankless, necessary pilgrimage.

January Gill O’Neil is a poet and associate professor of English at Salem State University and lives in Beverly, MA. She is the author of four collections of poetry including, Glitter Road, a finalist for the 2024 New England Book Award. She is a proud member of the Thursday Poets and an even prouder member of Creative Collective.

Kathleen Aguero’s poem “Hard Work” was reprinted with permission of the author.