7 Upbeat Poems to Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day (with printable PDFs)
Check out these seven upbeat and whimsical poems from ASP authors; print one out for Poem in Your Pocket Day!
What is Poem in Your Pocket Day?
Poem in Your Pocket Day was created by the Office of the Mayor of New York City in 2002 in partnership with the New York Department of Cultural Affairs and Education. Its goal is to reintroduce poetry, a traditionally performative art, into social situations and normal everyday life. As such, PIYPD marks the end of National Poetry Month, bringing the lessons of the month out into the rest of the year.
Poets.org teaches us how to participate (in the age of Covid-19):
"It's easy to participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day from a safe distance. Here are some ideas of how you might get involved:
- Select a poem and share it on social media using the hashtag #PocketPoem.
- Print a poem and draw an image from the poem in the white space, or make an origami swan.
- Record a video of yourself reading a poem, then share it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or another social media platform you use.
- Email a poem to your friends, family, neighbors, or local government leaders.
- Schedule a video chat and read a poem to your loved ones.
- Add a poem to your email footer.
- Read a poem out loud from your porch, window, backyard or outdoor space."
Here are SEVEN awesome poems from Alan Squire Publishing poets you can print and share on PIYPD!
Locator by Grace Cavalieri
Love Poem by Elizabeth Hazen
Elegy for the One Step Down by Reuben Jackson
House by Linda Watanabe McFerrin
I'm in Love with the Morton Salt Girl by Richard Peabody
The Last Girl by Rose Solari
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Katherine E. Young
Featured Audio: “Letter from Sligo Creek” a poem by Rose Solari
Like the cover photo, the poems in Difficult Weather are timeless and—unlike the poems in many first books—extraordinarily mature. Although the narrative voice is generally that of a young woman in her late twenties and early thirties whose subject matter sometimes ranges back to early childhood, these are poems of adulthood: the discovery and endlessly painful rediscovery of human frailty, sexual and emotional betrayal, bad love in all its familial and romantic varieties, memory, and elegy…
Listen to Grace Cavalieri Interview fmr. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
Grace Cavalieri is known widely for her stirring and empathic poetry, collected in her Legacy work Other Voices, Other Lives, but did you know that she is also an impressive interviewer? On her NPR show, The Poet and The Poem, she interviews significant poets from the US and around the world, with an aim of interpreting their lives through their poetry. In her tenure on the program, she has interviewed 9 US Poets Laureate (you can find a list with these archived interviews HERE), including the incomparable Robert Pinsky.
Featured Poetry: “Toytown” by Grace Cavalieri
The name Other Voices, Other Lives, is not purely poetical, in fact, for Grace Cavalieri it is a mission statement. In her Legacy Book of the same name there are several sections in 3rd person omnipotent which aim to breathe the same air as famous women who have suffered adversity. Tragic figure Anna Nicole Smith, feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, Cora from William Carlos William’s Kora in Hell. All in all they are an admix of Grace Cavalieri’s poetic life, all brought together in one beautiful volume; so, perhaps, we might figure that Anna Nicole Smith converses with Mary Wollstonecraft for the very first time in the pages of Other Voices, Other Lives.
Today, from the Anna section we have the heart-rending “Toytown”