April 2013

Of Poets and Pockets

Hello Friends —

Poem in Your Pocket Day 2013 is here!

Have you ever thought about why the National Poetry Month folks decided on “Poem in Your Pocket Day”? Poets came up with this day, so you already know there’s not going to be one straightforward answer — there are going to be layers of possible meaning. But I think it’s worth noting they could’ve picked another analogy for small or short — they could’ve made up “Bite-Size Poetry Day” or “Poem In Your Thimble Day” or “Poem That When Curled Up Into A Tiny Scroll Fits In Your Inner Ear Day.”

The poet’s ear elates at alliteration of course, but I think the “pocket” of “Poem in Your Pocket Day” is about more than that — these poets didn’t pick “Pint-Sized Poem Day” or “Post-It Poem Day” for instance.

They also didn’t pick “This Impossibly Long Poem Is Never Gonna End Day.”

So what is the relationship between the pocket and the poem? In modern day, the pocket is a clothing compartment universally known for storing words that we want to remember (as in notes to ourselves, to-do lists, passwords not to forget on the way back to our desks), as well as words that we intend to share (as in, taking your notecards out of your pocket as you walk up to the podium to deliver your speech). These two acts — remembering and sharing — are at the heart of what Poem in Your Pocket Day aims for, remembering and sharing poems. I would argue the pocket evokes the compact, square-but-not-quite-square form of the stanza — the original poetic building block, going back to before humans even wrote down our words, back when we just memorized our stories in order to tell them to each other again, and so invented rhyme and meter to make our stories easier to remember. The stanza is a pocket. The pocket is a stanza. The pocket is an envelope. A mouth. Your pocket (even more than a pocket or the pocket) is most often made of cloth, weaving in a long-standing analogy between fabric and language, that fine line between cloth and paper. And perhaps most importantly, your pocket is frequently associated with a location close to your heart.

For me, “pocket poems” are the poems short enough not to intimidate the poetry-wary — the friendly, the highly sharable poems. “Pocket poems” are poems that we keep in our heads — poems short enough to memorize, thereby reenacting on a small scale the very invention of poetry. And “pocket poems” are also the poems (of any length) that we keep close to our hearts — that we may “pull out,” as if from a pocket, on any given day, any hour, because they help us construct meaning from that given moment in your lives. The best, the most pocket-y-est of “pocket poems,” are all of those at once.

Today your friend Ellen and various other poetry enthusiasts scattered throughout the country will be handing out conveniently pocket-sized poems on the street to unsuspecting passers-by. Even when I’m feeling extra-introverted and not-so-courageous, or super-overworked-busy, I have never been sorry to have taken a couple of hours one day a year to hand poems to strangers. It is a truly rewarding experience — just try it; you’ll know soon enough what I mean. If you think this April might be your April to try it, here’s a PDF of pocket-sized poems for printing out, cutting out, and handing out. The Academy of American Poets — the folks who officially bring you National Poetry Month — also have a collection of pocket poems here. Some other suggestions for you from the Academy:

Add a poem to your email footer for the day
Post a poem on your blog or social networking page
Text a poem to friends
Start a street team to pass out poems in your community
Post pocket-sized verses in public places
Project a poem on a wall, inside or out
Urge local businesses to offer discounts for those carrying poems
Start a “poems for pockets” swap or give-a-way in your school or workplace

And, don’t forget: If today is not your day, no one knows when “real” Poem in Your Pocket Day is anyway — so take some poetic license! You’re pretty much good through the end of April / National Poetry Month. Or whenever.

Enjoy.
Ellen

The Shirt

The shirt touches his neck
and smoothes over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt—
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

Pocket-sized “The Shirt” by Jane Kenyon was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 7, 2009 and Poem-a-Day April 22, 2007.

Where Have All the Poems Gone?

Hi Friends,

It’s come to my attention that some of you noticed a lack of poems in your inbox this month.

For the past many years, I’ve celebrated National Poetry Month by sharing with all of you little bits of what I love about poetry — via one poem per day, delivered to your email inbox, for the duration of the month: 30 days. 30 poems. 30 poets.

One of my weaknesses is that I really suck at doing things half-assed, watered down, or sloppily slapped together; I have an extremely difficult time lowering my standards for myself and my own work — like, to a fault; it’s a problem. This April, I found that I wasn’t gonna be able to do my poem-a-day series all-out, the way it deserves to be done — so I haven’t done it all.

But that’s not right, either. I do still want to celebrate poetry month with each you. So, some thoughts:

1. Send me a poem this April? Include a little note about why it’s a favorite of yours, or why you think it’s a poem I might like, or a comment or a question you have about the poem.

2. Six Aprils’ worth of poem-a-days are yours to revist or explore for the first time here at meetmein811.blogspot.com. Do you have a favorite previous poem-a-day, one that still sticks with you all these Aprils later?

3. I’m going to email you next week about Poem in Your Pocket Day, which is officially April 18 this year, but works well on pretty much any day in April.

4. Brackets! Poets! Powell’s Books! 3 of my favorite things, all rolled into one. Check out Powell’s Books’ new experiment this April, Poetry Madness.

5. A poem! for you! for April! (below) A thank you to Jeannine for reminding me that e.e. cummings has probably written more of my favorite poems specifically about April and spring than any other poet. What other poets do you think might rival Cummings for the (Poet)King of Spring title?

6. As always, you can learn more about National Poetry Month at the website of the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org.

I hope that you’re all doing well!

Love,
Ellen

when faces called flowers float out of the ground
and breathing is wishing and wishing is having—
but keeping is downward and doubting and never
—it’s april(yes,april;my darling)it’s spring!
yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly
yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be
(yes the mountains are dancing together)

when every leaf opens without any sound
and wishing is having and having is giving—
but keeping is doting and nothing and nonsense
—alive;we’re alive,dear:it’s(kiss me now)spring!
now the pretty birds hover so she and so he
now the little fish quiver so you and so i
(now the mountains are dancing,the mountains)

when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living—
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
—it’s spring(all our night becomes day)o,it’s spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

— E.E. Cummings, from XAIPE (1950)

BOOKS I LEFT BEHIND AT POWELL’S

A LIST, A LOVE LETTER, A POSTCARD TO MYSELF — SEPTEMBER 2012

The poetry section at Powell’s Books is more expansive than the 811 aisle of many a library. Upon landing at PDX, I hopped on the MAX and proceeded directly to W. Burnside & 10th — my #1 destination whenever in Portland, OR. That first afternoon, I made it from A through F. Two days later, I made it through to Z. Just in the poetry section.

If I had a million dollars and any empty shelf room, I’d’ve given some of these beautiful creatures a loving home… Alas I didn’t even have the nerve to take photos in the aisles, but what I do have is this list.

DROOL-WORTHY / IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND / NEVER SEEN BEFORE:

#1 Hymn to the Gentle Sun by Sister Mary Norbert Korte (1967 1st edition of the poet’s first book, published in Berkeley CA, good condition… you’d probably have to track down the “Redwood Mama Activist” herself to find another copy like this one)
#2 Dorothy Q Together With a Ballad of the Boston Tea Party & Grandmother’s Story of Bunker Hill Battle by Oliver Wendell Holmes (late 1800s, 1st edition, identified by pg. 50 ‘flashed’ instead of ‘clashed’)
#3 Slick But Not Streamlined by John Betjeman with an introduction by W.H. Auden (1947, gorgeous 1st edition with dust jacket)
#4 Come In by Robert Frost (1943, 1st edition with dust jacket, full of illustrations, gorgeous)
#5 Tabret & Harp by Marion Armstrong (1967 — I think 1st & only edition) …you can find other Marion Armstrong, but not this one. Page 11 particularly caught my ear:

Brightly, oddly,
Greedy as a shark,
The teeth of the ungodly
Glitter in the dark.

#6 Richard Aldridge, Fantasy Poets series pamphlet (opens four ways), marked for one shilling — (1956, published in Britain — Aldridge was a Fulbright scholar studying at Worcester College, Oxford, at the time this was printed. This is so rare I’d wonder if Aldridge himself might not have a copy and want this one.)
#7 Rootabaga Pigeons by Carl Sandburg (kids’ book by the poet, lovely gilded hardback edition, good shape)
#8 History of Prostitution by William W. Sanger, Eugenics Publishing Co. (worn but not bad for mid-1800s printing) I want this partly for fascination/curiosity’s sake, and partly because I don’t want anyone else to have it who might try to falsely associate it with Margaret Sanger

… AND THAT’S MOSTLY JUST IN THE POETRY SECTION. I DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT INTO THE RARE BOOK ROOM.

OTHER TEMPTATIONS LEFT BEHIND:

Shelf Life, the Powell’s documentary DVD
To Herland & Beyond by Ann J. Lane (I have a Herland obsession — 1912 Charlotte Perkins Gilman all-female dis/utopia novella)
Word on the Street by Richard Nagler (2010, photos of a single word in urban scenes, as graffiti, sign, etc.)
Going Postal by Martha Cooper (2009, photos of mailing label street art)
Destroy This Memory by Richard Misrach (2010, photos of graffiti messages on post-Katrina abandoned buildings)
How To Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books (2008 — what can I say? I am that sucker who is attracted to books comprised mainly of photos of the covers of other books)
Complete Nonsense by Edward Lear (1996 reprinting in a hand-colored edition I’d never seen before)
Field Work by Seamus Heaney (1979, 1st edition — not rare, but still a really nice copy)
Instructions to the Double by Tess Gallagher (1994, known poet and known press, so you’d think it wouldn’t be that hard to find, but it is)
Pursuit by Erica Funkhouser (2002, Houghton Mifflin imprint, so not hard to find)
John Kinsella — someone gave Powell’s a copy of almost every book this Australian nature poet has ever written
The Important Thing by Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon author, this title recently reintroduced into circulation)
Here by Wislawa Szymborska (you know, that Polish poet who won the Nobel Prize who’s not Czeslaw Milosz)
All of Us by Raymond Carver
Tongue and Thunder by David Cloutier (1980, Copper Beach — not Canyon — Press)
A Moon Over Wings by Tom Aslin (2008, Clark City Press)

Did I mention I love Powell’s? Go buy some books — you know you love them.
http://www.powells.com