Bihl Haus Arts will celebrate National Poetry Month virtually during its 5th Annual Inter-Generational Reading featuring its “golden” readers from the GO! Arts writing classes and the Young Poets Society of the Young Women’s Leadership Academy at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 18 at www.BihlHausArts.org.

This year’s theme is “How’s Things? Objects in Prose & Poetry” in which writers will focus on everyday objects, said Jim LaVilla-Havelin, instructor of Bihl Haus’ GO! Arts writing classes and coordinator of National Poetry Month in San Antonio.

“Part of what happens when you focus on an object is that it’s like archaeology. You dig out pieces of history that are rich,” he said. “One of my favorite assignments with the Golden writers is to ask them to write about their first TV, not just what it looked like but what it meant to them. So you have to ask the young girls to write about what they have now, like cell phones. It allows for a cross-generational reach and they can all learn from each other.”

The annual event is also a wonderful opportunity to bring young and older generations together to share ideas about life and the future, LaVilla-Havelin said.

“It’s interesting to see the difference in perceptions of the world and the exchange of memories and significant parts of what and who we write about is enlightening between young and golden, and it also allows for some real teaching moments between the two,” he said.

Go! Arts Memoir writers are Bill Bailey, Marvin King and Gloria Morrison. Their instructor is Bonnie Lyons. Go! Arts poetry and prose writers are Laura Schultz, Sharon Ankrum and Ed Cody. Young Poets Society writers are Caroline Evangelista, Autumn Kretzschmer and Malaya Pena.

The inter-generational reading between seniors and young women writers developed, LaVilla-Havelin explained, when the Young Women’s Leadership Academy invited him to speak to Young Poets Society and later named him poet-in-residence.

“Since I teach Golden writers and coordinate National Poetry Month, it seemed liked a good idea to do a reading involving the two generations,” he said.