April is national poetry month, and there is great stuff out there on the internet. Of all the rich offerings, perhaps the most engaging  is Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project. This collection of short videos showcases individuals reading and speaking intimately about poems they love. These videos,  a permanent part of the Library of Congress spoken word archive, are a wonderful teaching and learning tool.  It’s hard to pick a favorite because so many are so good. Teenage girls might particularly enjoy Minstrel Man (read by a Cambodian-American girl who survived Pol Pot’s Killing Fields)  This page will take you to the video selection. I gained a new appreciation of Sylvia Plath’s Nick and the Candlestick after seeing and hearing photographer Seph Rodney recite. His intensity, intelligence and vitality will grab you, too, I’ll bet. He says of his first reading of the poem, “It was powerful, rough, bitter, caustic, and at the same time urgent about the need for love.”