April is National Poetry Month — the perfect time to discover your favorite poems. Whether you want to dive into a powerful sonnet or enjoy the playful simplicity of a haiku, Google Play Books has features to help you enjoy reading poetry. Here are handy tips and tricks to take your poetry reading up a level — from writing notes about your favorite lines to hearing stanzas read aloud to organizing your digital poetry book collection.

Annotate and highlight poignant lines of poetry

Poetry often inspires personal reflection. With Google Play Books, you can easily capture your thoughts and annotations so you can revisit them later. Highlight the lines that move you or add bookmarks for quick reference. You can even add notes and easily access them through Google Drive for when you want to reflect back.

Customize your reading experience

Just as every poem has its own style, every reader has their own preferences. Customized fonts, layout, lighting and more, let you personalize your poetry reading experience to match your individual taste. You can choose a font that reflects a poem’s theme or adjust the line spacing on the page so it’s easier for you to read.

Let the poetry speak to you

Experience poetry as spoken word with our curated poetry audiobook library. The collection features poems from a variety of genres so you can actively immerse yourself while you listen verse by verse.

And for poems that don’t have an audiobook, Google Play Books’ Read Aloud accessibility feature provides you with the option to listen to the poem aloud. In addition to text-to-speech, you can select a natural-sounding, more human-like voice for reading aloud and change its speed to more accurately capture the inflection and emotion of the work.

Organize and personalize your (virtual) bookshelf

Google Play Books lets you organize and sort books on a virtual shelf, making it easier to filter by author, genre and more. You can also name a shelf — perhaps for your favorite poet or types of poetry — to better organize your library and quickly find your favorite poems.

Become a self-published poet

While Google Play Books is a destination for readers, our Google Play Books Partner Center helps aspiring writers to self-publish and reach potential readers. After filling out basic information and agreeing to the terms, you can become a self-published poet and share your poetry with the world!