April is National Poetry Month, so it’s a great time to explore poetry with your children.   Why not begin with spring poems as North Carolina bursts into bloom? Although your kids may know the rhyme “April showers bring May flowers,” they may not be as familiar with the first stanza of this fun poem by Elizabethan poet Thomas Nashe (1567-c. 1601).

Spring, the Sweet Spring
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

Our state has a rich tradition of poets. Among them is poet and novelist Caroline Lee Hentz, who was born in Massachusetts and moved to the Tar Heel State in the late 1820s. Native North Carolinians John Charles McNeill, John Henry Boner and Henry Jerome Stockard were well-known poets in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The position of North Carolina Poet Laureate was established in 1935, but the first appointment was not made until 1948, when Arthur Talmadge Abernethy received the honor. He served until 1953 and was subsequently followed by James Larkin Pearson, Sam Ragan and Fred Chappell. The current North Carolina Poet Laureate, Kathryn Stripling Byer, was named in 2005. On her Web blog, you can read her poetry and learn about other North Carolina poets and events.

Introducing your kids to poetry is a fun way to discover language, history, literature and music. Three Web sites to explore are the children’s section of the Poetry Foundation, the Poetry Archive and the N.C. Arts Council.

While you’re at the N.C. Arts Council Web site, read about North Carolina’s Student Laureate Contest and watch videos of high-school students who were semifinalists and finalists in the recent statewide  Poetry Out Loud competition. See for yourself that poetry is alive and thriving in North Carolina.

B.J. Davis of the N.C. Museum of History writes once a month for TriangleMom2Mom.