Favorite Poem Project Complete

April 2019- A community reading of selected works from the Favorite Poem Project

In April 2019 to celebrate National Poetry Month, Mount Vernon’s inaugural Poet Laureate, Marianne Taylor, asked citizens to submit their favorite poems.

The participation was overwhelming. Over 80 participants ranging in age from 3rd grade to dotage submitted poems as well as moving stories about how those pomes had become their favorite. Submissions from all over the community, rang in ranging from humorous childhood favorites to indelible classics.

The impact poetry has had on Mount Vernon is clear, and MVAAC wanted to ensure the archival of submissions for a long time to come. Submissions were compiled into a digital art piece so that Mount Vernon citizens can see the poems that have won the heart of this community.

Of the project, Taylor said, “In offering the Favorite Poem Project, my hope was to engage our community in thinking about the role poetry plays in our lives.  It stays with us because of a delightful image, like e. e. cummings’ “wee balloonman” or Frost’s “Two roads diverged in a wood,” or because of the sound of the language, as in Edward Lear’s “They danced by the light of the moon,” or Poe’s “Quoth the Raven, nevermore. Sometimes we love it, as do a number of our young respondents, just because it’s silly, like Silverstein’s “Sick.”  And poetry also endures because it provides a bit of wisdom to hold close to our hearts, as a number of those who submitted poems thoughtfully attest to in the following presentation. “

A small selection of the submitted works were shared at a National Poetry Celebration in April of 2019. The full results are now permanently available for all on MVAAC’s website. See for yourself at the link below.