You know it’s National Poetry Month when non-poetry publications and corporate advertising venues try their hand at poetry with drab reader submissions that sound like J. Crew catalog descriptions with a heavy stock market accent.

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A father from our daughter’s kindergarten class sent invitations to his art exhibit downtown. The white card was premium stock and edged in gold. The envelope lined with rainbow-colored silk paper, and smooth under my fingers. My wedding was the only occasion I had ever sent such fancy invites. The kind of invite you had a drink with.

We arrived at the gallery. Its walls were white-washed behind the oil paintings and the lights hung low from the white ceiling, stalactites. Waiters dressed in black-and-white, and with dark slicked-back hair, moved through the crowd. They offered white and red wine in stemless glasses. I reached for the red wine. My husband shot me a look and requested water. We made small talk with the other parents: weather, economy, rumors that our school’s principal was about to take early-retirement.

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Nitrogen!

Knee-deep in manure, that’s the best way to spend an Easter weekend. Good shit, the kind that makes your garden grow, is just like the shit that grows your mind. By sheer quantity and probability, the Brooklyn Rail wonders if universality is impossible. March Madness has wound up, but The Morning News has the Tournament of Books championship, pitting Kingsolver against Mantel. Dorothy Parker’s poetry reveals the challenge of popularity in academia. Pulitzer might’ve had his own Rosebud — there’s a look at his tangled life in Tablet. Two opposing biographies on Jesus, and neither is the New Testament. Oh yeah, that’s some good shit!– Andrew Geer