April in the US has been officially designated National Poetry Month.
April in the US has also been officially designated National Brunch Month, National Jazz Appreciation Month, and National Welding Month. Not wedding; WELDING.
April is also Stress Awareness Month as well as National Cannabis Awareness Month, two Awarenesses which seem to entirely offset one other.
It’s a lot of things, April - a time when quite a few incredibly important issues are annually commemorated, and in this mix is “National Poem in Your Pocket Day”, begun over twenty years ago in New York City by the Academy of American Poets. It is, ironically, a book well read by its cover: we are all supposed to carry around a poem that means a great deal to us, and share it with passersby in a manner which will not incite violence or inspire the “calling of authorities”.
Perhaps leave the Charles Bukowski home.
I missed it this year by a full week. It was the first time I’d heard about it: our family celebrates poetry on January 25 during Burns Night, the Scottish celebration of the work of Robert Burns, whose most famous poem is sung ‘round the world 25 nights before - “Auld Lang Syne”. We heat up the neeps and tatties and try our hand at authentic Highland brogue before pulling out the Dorothy Parker, e.e. cummings, and Dr. Seuss.
It’s the perfect thing for a cold winter night (a drop of Scotch does help), a tradition we have shared with only a few people, as it’s harder to read poetry that we all remember. It’s not just words, but meter and structure… when reading some poets I feel like I’m assembling a fold-up pup tent at a campout, stumbling over pieces that don’t seem to fit together but they MUST, we just did this last year, does somebody remember how this goes?
There was some kind of Poem In Your Pocket Day competition at work, but I don’t think there was a prize or anything.
The guidelines were pretty broad: write a poem about the city and then share it on social media.
I’ve been writing poems for a while now, since COVID lockdown (I had written lots of songs before, but not many poems, which sounds ridiculous, I know, but there it is). So I gave it a shot. I don’t expect anybody to really carry it around with them in their pocket, but as it is online and folks have their phone with them all day, the criteria may technically be filled.
eight
point five million
beating hearts
in wild cacophony
islands
walking upon islands
with emboldened entropy
who understand
and tolerate
who say it is
or isn’t great
yet still remain
to call this home
while others fled
to lawns and basements
pre-arrangements of down payments
we remained here
cramped together
just to hear the Everything
or see that perfect rising sun
those mornings we find time to run
it’s not just a song we sing
”if we can make it here” we swear
we should survive life anywhere
but that is not a reason why
we should attempt to leave
or try to make believe we wouldn’t miss
that cloying radiator hiss
that boom boom outside, rolling slow
from someone else’s radio
(the shower pressure could be more
but that’s what a vacation’s for)
and no anthropophobic fear
feels stronger than
belonging
here
eight
point five million
story books
all islands
upon islands.
Share this post