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'Muses And Metaphor' Kicks Off National Poetry Month

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Tell Me More kicks off its annual ode to poetry month with the Muses and Metaphor series.

Throughout April we'll feature Twitter poems submitted by NPR fans and hear from poets and writers from all over the country.

But to shake things up, regular contributors to Tell Me More's Beauty Shop, Barbershop and Political Chats are also trying their hands at verses and rhymes while following the submissions on Twitter.

Fernando Espuelas, managing editor of The Fernando Espuelas Show on Univision joined Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz to launch the series. "It was the hardest thing I've written in 25 years" says Espuelas of his own Twitter poem. "This format--especially the 140 characters forces you to get to a deeper truth and whether you do it for yourself or you do it for someone else it's a really interesting exercise what pops out of your brain in that context."

If you want to get in the mix, tweet your poems using #TMMPoetry.

Tardy planes, zero legroom

Connections late at night.

Superman, I hate to ask

But I sure could use the flight.

--Connie Schultz @ConnieSchultz

Toes at edge of the widest river I imagine arrival of long-ago sailors The slaughtered Charrúa, inevitable Now all are dust Cold toes

--Fernando Espuelas @EspuelasVox


Week 1 Highlights:

We worship the mundane. We love the mediocre. We are in awe of the ordinary. We, are stagnating, without knowing it.

--@namithavr

Lepus chases Orion in pre-dawn sky over the horizon, I follow in my car on the way to work

--@Eusebeia_Philos

her bones quite brittle she slides down the bannisters one last time

--@flirtybloomers

I am my mother's daughter, but she does not know my name. She called me Faye, and I said, Faye's dead. That made her laugh. So...good.

--TheOtherMartha1

MORNING COMMUTE I can't go fast enough towards it, this fat blue sky, this flood above my knuckles and the wheel.

--@toleos



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