The following blog entry was written by Meredith Matthews, the editor of Current Health magazine.

April is National Poetry Month! It's time to reread your favorite poems, share them with others, and maybe write some while you're at it. One person who has taken that sentiment to heart is Stephanie Hemphill.

She recently published a book called Your Own, Sylvia. It is a biography of the highly acclaimed poet Sylvia Plath. But interestingly, it's told in poetry, adopting the voices of people who knew Plath, and pondering what might have been going on in the poet's head at various points in her life. Hemphill offers a series of poems that take the reader from Plath's birth in 1932, through her life and writing, and all the way to her suicide in 1963.

The poems are sometimes amusing, sometimes striking, but they all attempt to communicate what Plath was like at various points in her life. The reading of each poem, as well as the biographical note that explains it, gives the reader immediate and poignant insight. It makes Plath's life story more vivid and accessible than a full-length biography could.

If you're a fan of Plath, try this book on for size and see if you want to add it to your collection. (You'll also want to pick up The Bell Jar, her semi-autobiographical novel.) If you've never read any of Plath's poetry before, National Poetry Month is a great time to start!

Much of her work is edgy, marked by anger and violence, but she also wrote poems of immense and simple beauty, that anyone can appreciate. A good example is the poem “Morning Song,” essentially a love note to a child. Even if you don't usually like poetry, you'll probably be smitten by these lovely lyrics.