Poets, young and older, will be celebrating this month with poetry challenges. National Poetry Month was initially established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 and in Canada in 1998 by the League of Canadian Poets. The main aim is to highlight the vital place poetry plays in culture. Why April, you may ask - primarily April was chosen to ensure the highest level of participation from poets, librarians, teachers and booksellers.

There is an Edmonton Poetry Festival staged annually in Edmonton, Alberta. Hundreds of word artists from Edmonton and across the country come together to celebrate written and spoken verse.

My own writing group, Writers Foundation of Strathcona County challenges the membership to write a poem a day through April to a theme. This year it is - World on Fire. Many of these poems are then selected to be included in an anthology. This year will be the fifth! As many of you know, poetry is not my main writing objective, however if a prompt sparks an idea, I will write one or two.

Let the words flow.