There is a rare and particular pleasure that arrives each April in your email inbox, if you so desire: A poem a day, for 30 days. And if you wish, you can receive two!

April is National Poetry Month, and two entities will send you a poem every day if you subscribe. One is Knopf Poetry, and you can sign up here; the other comes from the American Academy of Poets, and although it’s highlighted in April, their Poem A Day service runs all year long. They also have a lot of other suggestions about how to celebrate National Poetry Month, so if you wish to immerse yourself in language, take some of their suggestions.

From one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, who just passed away in January:

WATERING THE STONES

Every summer I gather a few stones from
the beach and keep them in a glass bowl.
Now and again I cover them with water,
and they drink. There’s no question about
this; I put tinfoil over the bowl, tightly,
yet the water disappears. This doesn’t
mean we ever have a conversation, or that
they have the kind of feelings we do, yet
it might mean something. Whatever the
stones are, they don’t lie in the water
and do nothing.

Some of my friends refuse to believe it
happens, even though they’ve seen it. But
a few others—I’ve seen them walking down
the beach holding a few stones, and they
look at them rather more closely now.
Once in a while, I swear, I’ve even heard
one or two of them saying “Hello.”
Which, I think, does no harm to anyone or
anything, does it?