In honor of National Poetry Month, which has been celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Newtown Poet Laureate Lisa Schwartz is sharing some of her favorite works by local poets.homegrown writer Amy Nawrocki. "The Fiddleheads' Return" comes from her book, Four Blue Eggs, published by Homebound Publications (2014).Reconnaissance (Homebound Publications, 2015).Reconnaissance as "a warm, rich, valuable and important collection. I most highly recommend it for … reading and rereading."A History of Connecticut Food and Literary Connecticut. She lives in Hamden, and teaches English and Creative Writing at University of Bridgeport.The Fiddleheads' Return

To close out the month-long celebration of poetry, Ms Schwartz has chosen a poem by

Amy Nawrocki grew up in Sandy Hook and graduated from Newtown High School in 1991. She earned her BA at Sarah Lawrence College, and her MFA from University of Arkansas. Ms Nawrocki is the author of five poetry collections, most recently

Dick Allen, the former Poet Laureate of Connecticut, referred to

Along with her husband Eric D. Lehman, Ms Nawrocki is also the author of three Connecticut history books, including

When the first dew

of spring warms the early worm

out of hibernation

a covenant is rendered.

Young ferns, yellow with greenness,

nudge out from the deep,

snow-melted soil, poking through

centuries of death.

They leave comfort for hazards

of exposure, the burdens

of life. The new hope

coils slowly around the nub

of itself, the stalk

moves with incremental

sadness toward a timepiece

skies away. Soon

music forms at the edge

of delicate spirals,

music steeped in translation:

what loam says to darkness

in the cold moon hour,

how sunbeams brew the sacred

molecule to freshen

a poorly lit universe,

how the head of a fiddle

emerges out of

the clean violin of time,

strings tuned to the key

of true green assurance,

of repetition, the promise

of night music,

and the return of morning's

trusted, distant chord.

-Amy Nawrocki