Poem in Your Pocket Day
Poetry readers across the country are celebrating Poem in Your Pocket Day this week, each folding a poem and carrying it, you guessed it, in their pockets. We don’t want you to be caught poem-less, so we’ve pulled together ten short poems from Every Day Poems (unless your pocket is very large, you probably don’t want to fold and carry The Wasteland in it). Choose one to copy and keep with you all day. You might even take out your poem and read it to a friend or coworker.
1. inhale
inhale
then for a moment
nothing
The first bite
is all I want
wild pear
3. First Grade Classroom in March
Whatever’s caught inside wanting out, as a sound
is stuttered before the word’s pronounced.
maybe start talking say I like those
dangly things on your ears they’re called earrings
I know that and while you’re talking get out a bowl
It is the wings that take the damage,
not the hollow, honeycomb bones,
Make my clothes dripping,
and make them organ and smoke.
Make me an outfit with mutable bloom,
7. Passage
You spin, and the whole world turns
upside down. Roots become growth
8. Window
Night from a railroad car window
Is a great, dark, soft thing
Broken across with slashes of light.
9. Laundry Love
is tangled shirts
the hem of a skirt
caught
10. a path of leaves
a path of leaves
our conversation
turns wordless
Photo by Derrick Collins. Creative Commons license via Flickr.
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Maureen Doallas says
What a lovely surprise to see a poem of mine here. Thank you!
Jody Lee Collins says
I chose a poem by another Jody (the first grade classroom one, of course) AND Claire’s “It is the Wings”. I have two back pockets 🙂
Liz says
The best possible collection I can imagine for Poem in Your Pocket Day is Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison’s ‘Braided Creek.’
Old friend,
perhaps we work too hard
at being remembered.