In April 2024, the Mississippi Center for the Book celebrated National Poetry Month with Dial-a-Poem. Callers heard the following poems:

• Margaret Walker: “I Want to Write”
• Tony Hoagland: “Field Guide”
• Ada Limon: “Instructions on Not Giving Up”
• Catherine Pierce: “Entreaty”
• Natasha Trethewey: “Gathering”
• Mark Strand: “Keeping Things Whole”
• Claude McKay: “Tropics in New York”
• Maggie Smith: “Prove”
• Mary Oliver: “When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention”
• Emily Dickinson: “To Make a Prairie”
• Tennessee Williams: “Heavenly Grass”
• Tracy K. Smith: “The Everlasting Self”
• Seamus Heaney: “Scaffolding”
• Dorothy Parker: “Inventory”
• Mark Nepo: “Adrift”
• Danusha Laméris: “Small Kindnesses”
• Matthew Olzmann: “Letter to the Person Who Carved His Initials into the Oldest Living Longleaf Pine in North America”
• Billy Collins: “Litany”
• Mary Oliver: “The Summer Day”

Want more poetry in your life? Use MLC’s BookMatch service for a custom poetry recommendations.