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Not everyone is a fan of National Poetry Month. In fact, there are a few poets who hate it. One of those is Charles Bernstein. Bernstein is a poet and professor of poetics at the State University of New York in Buffalo and he's had it up to here with watered-down slop that circulates every April trying to represent the rest of poetry.

The White House apparently has cancelled a poetry symposium after a number of American poets threatened to turn the event into an anti-war protest. The Feb. 12 symposium on Poetry and the American Voice was one of a number of literary gatherings organized by First Lady Laura Bush. NPR's Don Gonyea reports.

For National Poetry Month, "Morning Edition" pays homage to cowboy poetry.

As our last poet in our National Poetry Month series, Ofelia Zepeda reads her poetry. Zepeda is a professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her poetry is in both English and Tohono 'O'odham, her native language. She is a member of the Tohono 'O'odham tribe. Her tribe is an important part of her life and her poetry.

All Things Considered ends its April poetry series with poet William Stafford, a pacifist who came of age between the two world wars. NPR contributor Henry Lyman, the longtime host of the public radio program Poems to a Listener, sat down with Stafford in 1990.

Before he was dean at the Columbia University School of Journalism, before his legendary collaboration with Edward R. Murrow, before he produced CBS' "See It Now," Fred Friendly gave a radio dedication speech for the opening of the Quonset Naval Air Station in Rhode Island--at age 25. An NPR listener found it on a 78 rpm record at a flea market.

As part of our continuing poetry series throughout the month of April, 35-year-old poet Maurice Manning reads his work. Manning was born and raised near Lexington, Kentucky and now he's a professor at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Manning has always stayed close to his home of Kentucky and his poetry reflects his feelings about the land and culture that surrounds him. (4:15) Check out more NPR coverage of National Poetry Month.

Poets from around the globe have been sending Haikus to a group of scientists in hopes their verse may make it to the planet Mars. Host Rachel Martin has the story.

In this second of our two-part interview, former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins guides us through the new spoken-word CD box set Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work, 1888-2006. Today's segment features works by Robert Frost, Galway Kinnell, and Collins' own poems. Collins was U.S. poet laureate from 2001 to 2003, and currently serves as the poet laureate of New York State. His most recent book is The Trouble with Poetry and Other Poems.

As National Poetry Month draws to a close, we recognize five new volumes that celebrate the form, including verse probing the darkness at the edge of everyday life from U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic and hard questions posed in comic fashion from Jane Shore.