In celebration of National Poetry Month, the entire campus community is invited to join the Campus Poetry Project sponsored by the English, Foreign Languages and English as a Second Language Department.
Throughout April, be on the lookout for poetry postings in the Campus Chronicle and on digital monitors across campus, as well as our cardboard poet cutouts and poetry lawn signs. Take a selfie with your favorite poet!
This year, the American Academy of Poets is highlighting this verse: “we were all made for something” (Ada Limon). That is why we decided to focus on poems about work this year. We’ll include songs and lyrics about work, too! (Below is the official 2023 National Poetry Month poster from the American Academy of Poets.)
Also, 
please click here for a link to 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month in the classroom (or anywhere).
Today’s Poem
“Scaffolding”
by Seamus Heaney
(1939-2013)
Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.
“Scaffolding” from Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966–1996 by Seamus Heaney. Copyright © 1998 by Seamus Heaney.
Born in Ireland in 1939, Seamus Heaney was the author of numerous poetry collections, including Human Chain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010). He split his time between Dublin, Ireland, and Boston, where he taught at Harvard University for many years. Heaney received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995.