Did you know that April 14 is National Poem in Your Pocket Day?
I didn’t, until I read an article in The Sacramento Bee about how Yolo County residents plan to celebrate the day.
The idea behind Poem in Your Pocket Day is simple. You are to select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then, on this day, carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends.
Throughout the day, poems from pockets are unfolded with events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces, and bookstores.
In Yolo County, for instance, Allegra Silberstein, the city of Davis’ poet laureate, will lead a poetry reading at the Branch Library, where people can pick up pocket-sized poems, as well as write and finish poems that have been started with a first line.
What a great idea!
In keeping with National Poetry Month, here’s a favorite poem of mine.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost
What’s yours?
One of your favorites is also one of mine. I also love Psalms, when passages are read in poetry. I think it was one of the most beautiful things ever written. I love the idea of poetry in a pocket day…How original.
Hi Lee. I'm going to carry one in my pocket on the 14th, even if I don't end up going anywhere. It's a great idea.
This one always just breaks my heart with both its beauty and message.
Funeral Blues
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden
Hi Rosi. I'd never read "Funeral Blues" before. It is heartbreaking the way the world just goes on when your world seems to be coming to an end at the lose of a loved one–or worse yet, THE loved one. Thanks for sharing one of W.H. Auden's poems.