MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Switching gears now. It is almost April and that means it is time for TELL ME MORE's annual tribute to National Poetry Month. This is the fourth year of our Muses and Metaphor series. Throughout the month we will combine two of our passions - poetry and social media. We ask that you hop on Twitter and tweet us your original poems. Poems using no more than 140 characters of course. If you are not quite sure how all this works, take a listen to some of our favorite submissions from last year.

ELIZABETH ALEXANDER: First housefly, first bee staggers in flight and falls on the windowsill. April redux, comes spring, coming in.

ROBERT TINAJERO: When I was young, tacos were seen as poor food. People (foreign language spoken) forced to hide between the flour of civilized American culture.

SU LAYUG: Childhood westerns unzzsing (ph) the fog, rrring (ph) the ties, kssting (ph) the bearings. Mother had no words for it. My tongue, no home

JOEL DIAS-PORTER: Monday, Monday. Even my reality checks are bouncing.

MARTIN: We even heard from renowned poet Nikki Giovanni.

NIKKI GIOVANNI: Morgantown, West Virginia, haiku for Ethel and Lucy. Pinto beans, fried cornbread, clean spring water, rocking chair, your smile, home, peace.

MARTIN: This year we are adding a twist to Muses and Metaphors, we will tell you all about it next week so tune in. But in the meantime, start sending us your original twitter poems using the hashtag #TMMPoetry. And that's our program for today. I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Let's talk more tomorrow. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.