As a farewell to National Poetry Month, we’d like to share some great firsts in poetry and prose here on the Western New England Campus.

Below you can page through and download the first issue of Intrinsia (Spring 1970), the first literary magazine from Western New England, as well as the first issue of The Review of Arts and Literature (1988), which replaced Intrinsia after it was discontinued in 1984.

Hopefully reading creative works by fellow Western New England students will inspire you to tap into your own creativity, in whatever form it may take.

April is more than half over, which means National Poetry Month is nearing its end. Here are a couple more poems, both from the Westerner, WNE’s student newspaper. And tune in soon for our final post for National Poetry Month where we take a look at the University’s Review of Art and Literature, our literary magazine which features wonderful works of student prose and poetry!

Poems can be a beautiful, meaningful addition to any event or celebration, and today we’re looking at a poem that was read at the graduation ceremony for the WNE class of 1943!

The ceremony, held at the Sheraton in downtown Springfield, consisted of a full schedule. Graduates enjoyed a banquet, along with speeches and recitations by fellow students, as well as Mr. Churchill, the college President at the time.

Among these speeches and recitations was the Class Poem, read by Lloyd Jones. And fortunately for us, the Nor’Easter published not only the schedule of the ceremony, but the poem as well.

And for more complete picture of the day, you can take a look at the commencement program from 1943! You can even see that Lloyd Jones, in addition to being a wonderful poet, also received his degree in accounting.

Keep looking for poetry all around you this month, and we’ll keep posting poems that we find!

Since 1996, the Academy of American Poets has been celebrating National Poetry Month in April of every year. What a wonderful time to celebrate poetry, with the arrival of spring awakening everything around us, including inspiring words and thoughts! Created to encourage publication, reading, and support of poetry and poets, and to highlight all of the extraordinary work done and still being done by poets, National Poetry Month is the perfect time to reflect on the beauty of language and words, and to look for, or create, poetry in our every day lives.

Throughout this month, we’ll share poems created here on the Western New England campus over the years. To start the month off, here is a poem that begins, very appropriately, with thoughts on how to write poetry. This very meta poem, titled “Poem on Poetry”, appeared in The Westerner in April of 1950.

If you would like more poetry in your life this month, consider signing up for Poem-A-Day, and receive a new poem in your in box every day this month. You can sign up on the Academy of American Poet’s website, where you can also view the daily poem. And be sure to check back for more poems written by the campus community!