Hello Friends, and Happy National Poetry Month 2022!
In celebration, I will be sending you one poem per day just for the month of April: 30 days, 30 poems, 30 poets. Today’s selection is by Wendy Cope.
Hello Friends,
April 26 is officially Poem in Your Pocket Day, brought to you by the Academy of American Poets — the same folks who bring you National Poetry Month.
Those of you who have been on this list for nine years or more may have seen today's poem before, but I hope it lends itself to re-reading as one of my very favorite pocket-sized (or any-sized) poems of all time.
Enjoy.
Ellen
Close, close all night
the lovers keep.
They turn together,
in their sleep,
close as two pages
in a book
that read each other
in the dark.
Each knows all
the other knows,
learned by heart
from head to toes.
■
"Hymn for Lota" comes from the unpublished works of Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) — published in the 2006 collection Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop, edited by Alice Quinn. This poem is also featured in Marta Góes’s one-woman play A Safe Harbor for Elizabeth Bishop.
"Hymn to Lota" by Elizabeth Bishop was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 5, 2009 and Poem-a-Day April 3, 2007.
Poems by Elizabeth Bishop were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 6, 2008 and Poem-a-Day April 13, 2010.
Little snail,
Dreaming you go.
Weather and rose
Is all you know.
Weather and rose
Is all you see,
Drinking
The dewdrop’s
Mystery.
■
— Langston Hughes
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:
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.
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)
Hello Friends —
I’m happy to report Operation Distribute Pocket Poems in Long Beach was a success! I hope you enjoyed Poem in Your Pocket Day in your own way.
Today’s poem is by the unofficial poet laureate of Berkeley, California, Julia Vinograd — who has been blowing bubbles and recording street life on Telegraph Avenue for the past 40 years. She also holds an MFA from the University of Iowa (that’s like the poetry equivalent of an MBA from Harvard, very fancypants prestigious).
Sometimes reading hurts —
Ellen
WHAT PICASSO DID TO ME
I got this big thick heavy hardcover Picasso book
with pictures, platitudes, basically poundage
and carrying it home I pulled a muscle in my wrist.
My right hand’s gone cubist,
angles askew as Picasso’s women
crying into pointed teeth and sideways jaws.
My wrist throbs with the last scream of Guernica;
I’ve become too historical to haul myself into a bus
or pour tea,
I even use my other hand in the bathroom.
Picasso’s painted me into a corner
where the blind man sits
pulling my muscle on his blue guitar.
In the bullring my wrist’s already trampled
into the bloody sand
among thrown Spanish roses and oranges.
Neither bull nor matador know I’m alive
but I am alive, my wrist hurts.
The wars got into my wrist,
it’s all in the wrist.
Picasso’s using my wrist to paint
curly women and naked minotaurs
and I want my wrist back.
I’d like to throw the book at Picasso,
I want out of his book that bit me,
I’ve got an ace bandage and a grudge
while cubist tears roll down billboard faces.
So the paint won’t leak out. Or the pain.
Or the world spilling out of my wrist, hurting.
Hello Friends —
Tomorrow, Thursday April 26, is officially Poem in Your Pocket Day, brought to you by the Academy of American Poets — the same folks who bring you National Poetry Month, www.poets.org, and today’s subject line.
Poem in Your Pocket Day makes for an excellent excuse to spread the joy of Poetry Month to even more people! If you’ve never done it before, handing out poems on the street is very fun and rewarding. At first people will think you’re trying to hand them some promotional flyer they’ll then have to go to the trouble of finding a recycling bin for, but then they become pleasantly surprised to discover you’re giving them a little gift that asks nothing in return.
You can find today’s poem and other pocket-prone poems for your own Poem in Your Pocket Day celebration in print-your-own-at-home PDF format here. And here’s the best part: no one really knows, nor does it particularly matter, which day is actually Poem in Your Pocket Day — you can hand out poems to strangers any day, particularly any day in April.
Enjoy.
Ellen
Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
“Dust of Snow” by Robert Frost was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 16, 2007 and Poem-a-Day April 4, 2010.
Poet Robert Frost was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 30, 2008.
The Look
Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.
Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day.
By Sara Teasdale from Rivers to the Sea (1915)
“The Look” by Sara Teasdale was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 8, 2008.
THE POOL PLAYERS.
SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Forgive me, Gwendolyn Brooks. I know you get annoyed that this is the poem a disproportiate number of textbook and anthology editors have chosen to represent your entire body of work, but I just really like this one. Plus it fits nicely in the pockets of strangers on the street.
You can find this and other pocket-prone poems for your own Poem in Your Pocket Day celebration in print-your-own-at-home PDF format here. I am also very excited about a project Citizen Hope is doing in San Francisco on April 30 — organizing volunteers to read poems to elementary school students in San Francisco: Check it out here.
Poem in Your Pocket Day is brought to you by the Academy of American Poets, the same folks who bring you National Poetry Month and www.poets.org.