Clip, Carry, Share

Are you ready for Poem in Your Pocket Day?

Call me goofy, but I love this annual opportunity to share poems with abandon. As part of National Poetry Month, the Academy of American Poets celebrates Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26, 2012.

The idea is simple: select a poem you love, carry it with you, and share it with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and more. I also like to share poetry with strangers, and sometimes leave poems on car windshields (instead of a ticket, a poem!), in mailboxes (instead of a bill, a poem!), and often pop a few in the mail to farwaway friends.

This year, I will carry the poem above. Need a poem? You can print this page and clip, carry and share it with others. Already picked your poem? Please, will you share it with us?

Comments

[Sandy Longhorn]

Wahoo! I haven't picked mine yet but this is a great option.

[Allyson]

I haven't picked mine yet, either. Theoretically tomorrow I'm going to record audio or video of me reading whatever poem I choose and put it up on my blog, so those who live far away can enjoy my poem.

[Drew]

Allyson,
That's an excellent idea. Share the link here to the poem, please!

[Jo Jo Russell]

As I walked out the front door I reached for a handful of words I keep in a jar in the hall. The words tumble into my pocket without a sound and pronouns and adjectives abound and comingle with verbs and their cousins, those annoying adverbs, who detest the presence of the lowly prepositions. With my hand in my pocket nonsensical phrases form at my fingertips as my empty thoughts wander down the street and I follow mindlessly. A word or two slip silently from my pocket escaping the churning chaos of my fumbling fingers mincing words and turning phrases of nonsense and random clarity. For the moment the words suffocate in the turbulent darkness of my pocket under the relentlessly fidgeting fingers. I stop and take a seat on a park bench next to an elderly man. The man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handful of words and begins to feed the pigeons with them. There is a feeding frenzy and the birds devour every syllable. One pathetc pigeon flies off with a participle dangling from his beak. The old man digs deep into his pocket for one last word. There are no more words and there is one hungry bird in desperate need of sustenance. The man looks at me wordlessly. I reach into my pocket and offer a word. Kindness. He takes the word from my hand. The pigeon takes it from his. A baby pigeon takes it from it's mother's beak. It's an easy word to swallow and very nurishing. The jar is never empty.

[Ann]

I'm carrying around:

I Was Never Able to Pray

Wheel me down to the shore
where the lighthouse was abandoned
and the moon tolls in the rafters.

Let me hear the wind paging through the trees
and see the stars flaring out, one by one,
like the forgotten faces of the dead.

I was never able to pray,
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves

and then stare into the dome
of a sky that never ends
and see my voice sail into the night.

Edward Hirsch

[Drew]

Wow -

That's a beautiful piece, JoJo.

And, Ann, that's a great poem to carry in a pocket, and in the heart.

Thank you.

[Hannah Stephenson]

I didn't know about this day (but what a wonderful idea)!!

Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure what I'll choose...

[Drew]

Hannah,
With your prolific pace you could write your own Pocket Poem (ahh, alliteration, how I adore you).

Please do let us know what you choose.