National Poetry Month 2026 Highlights

Poetry workshop with Gamble Montessori at The Well!

We’ve had such a fulfilling April celebrating National Poetry Month with Mindful Poetry Moments. For his selected theme, This Common Home, our Curator Eddie Gonzalez selected wonderful nature-themed poetry from Ada Limón’s You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World collection. Eddie’s selections were shared out as Mindful Poetry Moments to our Mindful Music schools, allowing students a chance to slow down during the course of their school day in April with a guided mindful prompt, reading of the poetry, and an invitation to write.

Eddie Gonzalez, our Mindful Poetry Moments 2026 Curator

Our Virtual Gatherings from this year, including a special April 1st session with discussion led by poet, theologian, & host of Poetry Unbound Pádraig Ó Tuama

Our brand new Young Professional Gathering series in-person at The Well!

Our weekly Virtual Gatherings featured a number of amazing collaborators, including Pádraig Ó Tuama, Jaye Elizabeth Elijah, Makiah Malan, Rebecca Lindenberg, and our curator Eddie Gonzalez. Our first session with Pádraig Ó Tuama and Eddie Gonzalez had our highest number of registrants (400 folks) of any Well event we’ve ever had!

In addition to our Virtual Gatherings, thanks to the ArtsWave Young Professionals Grant Program, we also hosted in-person workshops for the first time at The Well for Cincinnati-based Young Professionals! Sessions were led by local artists and writers including Michael Thompson, Desirae “The Silent Poet” Hosley, Brooke Thomas, Bobby Minelli, and Amari Becker.

Collage-making and poetry workshop at The Well, led by artist Julie Klear Essakalli, in collaboration with Indigo Hippo for their Material Play series!

We have increased the amount of student engagement in April thanks to support from the Millstone Fund and Find Your Light Foundation, bringing Mindful Poetry workshops to roughly 20 schools, organizations, and communities in Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, and beyond. While implementing the program into our My True SELF curriculum this spring, we created a free 24-page workbook for students to explore this month’s poetry alongside a bonus mindful and art-centric activities.

Sharing our Mindful Poetry workbook at Northern Elementary and at NKU’s Dreamfest

Poetry writing and walk in nature at Sharp Middle School’s Nature Trail in Butler, KY.

While we look forward to prepping for next year’s National Poetry Month, we also want to remind you that Mindful Poetry still has plenty to share for the rest of year — we still have more schools to bring the program to throughout the year, our Fall and Winter Gatherings toward the end of the year, potential programming in the fall, and the release of our annual anthology in the summer. We’re so happy to spend time with you this month celebrating poetry. Looking forward to doing it again!

Students from Magnolia Elementary in Seattle, WA exploring Mindful Poetry activities and participating in a Virtual Workshop with The Well’s Patrick Raneses

Artistic responses to this year's Mindful Poetry by Lyric Morris-Latchaw

Learn more about Mindful Poetry Moments

Submit to our annual anthology here