by Kat | Apr 10, 2025 | General, Poetry
Hello and Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day!
I am joining Bonny again today to share a poem with you all!
I love little poems that can fit in your pocket… there for when you need them! I have a “pocket” in my planner that holds little poems… and a zippered pocket in my purse that has a collection as well.
After all, you never know when you will need a poem!
Billy Collins is my go-to poet for small poems. He has a book, Musical Tables: Poems, that is full of perfect little poems! My selection today is from that book. And it is even more appropriate because right now a gentle rain is falling outside… and while I did not hear any frogs or peepers… by the end of the month I will be hearing them and Billy is right that frogs do need a bit of an exaltation!
An Exaltation of Frogs
by Billy Collins
I know it’s supposed to be larks,
but their full-throated croaking
early this rainy morning
after a night of more rain
is lifting me slightly off the floor.
An Exaltation of Frogs © Billy Collins from Musical Tables, 2022.
You can read more about Billy Collins here or on his website here.
Make sure you visit Bonny and see all the poems for your pockets today!
Header photo by Jeffry S.S.
by Kat | Apr 25, 2024 | General, Poetry
Welcome to my favorite day of National Poetry Month — Poem In Your Pocket Day!
Every April I like to add a new book to my Poetry Library… and this year, dear Ada Limón had the perfect collection with perfect timing! You Are Here Poetry in the Natural World was published April 2! I have been reading through it with delight! It is full of beautiful poems!
The poem I have selected for you to tuck away in your pocket is one written by Ilya Kaminsky, a Ukrainian-American poet. The poem might change the way you look at rain… it certainly did for me! (And I needed a bit of a rain-itude adjustment with the wet April we have had!)
Letters
by Ilya Kaminsky
Rain has eaten 1/4 of me
yet I believe
against all evidence
these raindrops
are my letters of recommendation
here is a man worth falling on.
Letters by Ilya Kaminsky, published in You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World © Milkweed Editions and the Library of Congress © 2024.
Stop and see what Kym, Bonny, and Sarah have for your pocket today! I am heading off to Erie in 3, 2…
See you all back here in May!
by Kat | Apr 27, 2023 | General, Poetry
It is my favorite day… in my favorite month. The idea that you can carry poems with you… what a delightful thing! Today we are all sharing some poems for your pockets…
Today, I am sharing one for all of us for whom sleep is, at times, elusive. Apparently, dear Billy Collins is also similarly afflicted and he has some wisdom wit for us. I have memorized this bit of wit and contemplate it all too frequently… but at least I know I am in good company!
3:00 AM
by Billy Collins
Only my hand
is asleep,
but it’s a start.
3:00 AM from Musical Tables © Billy Collins, Random House New York, 2022.
If you want to know more about the delightful Billy Collins, you will find find information here, and here at his website.
Please make sure you stop and see what Kym, Bonny, and Sarah have for your pockets today!
Thank you so much for reading along with us this month!
by Kat | Apr 28, 2022 | General, Poetry
Today is one of my favorite days…it’s Poem In Your Pocket Day!
It’s a day to carry a poem with you… and perhaps you will even then invite poetry into the remaining days of the year.
I debated about what poem should I share this month. I contemplated Joyce Kilmer’s Tree’s or Carl Sandburg’s Fog… poems that my grandfather loved deeply. I also considered one of the many poems by Derek Walcott. So many choices. Really. There are literally hundreds of poems one could pick to put in your pocket today and not one a bad choice!
But earlier this month I heard a poem by Jane Kenyon and it has stayed with me. I have thought about her words almost daily, and have since printed it out and put in my journal. I have contemplated the words as I began my April chores in the garden – and especially when I saw those rhubarb leaves as they thought their way up through the soil… a certain sign of spring.
I think this poem will fit well in your pocket… enjoy!
April Chores
by Jane Kenyon
When I take the chilly tools
from the shed’s darkness, I come
out to a world made new
by heat and light.
The snake basks and dozes
on a large flat stone.
It reared and scolded me
for raking too close to its hole.
Like a mad red brain
the involute rhubarb leaf
thinks its way up
through loam.
Jane Kenyon, “April Chores” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon.
Please make sure you stop and visit Kym, Bonny, and Sarah today to see what they have for you to tuck into your pocket as well. I cannot thing of a better thing to fill your pockets with than a handful of poems!
Thank you all so much for reading along with this month… and especially I’d like to thank Kym for including me!
See you all here tomorrow!
by Kat | Apr 30, 2020 | General, In This Moment
It’s Poem in your Pocket Day and this poem is going in my pocket. I will carry it with me during the day. I will be thinking of the “heavy threads” of the day and hope that I will be stitched “into a useful garment”.
And yet, there is comfort in knowing the day “will do nothing of the kind”. Because even that is a blessing.
Heavy Threads
by Hazel Hall
When the dawn unfolds like a bolt of ribbon
Thrown through my window,
I know that hours of light
Are about to thrust themselves into me
Like omnivorous needles into listless cloth,
Threaded with the heavy colours of the sun.
They seem altogether too eager,
To embroider this thing of mine,
My Day,
Into the strict patterns of an altar cloth;
Or at least to stitch it into a useful garment.
But I know they will do nothing of the kind.
They will prick away,
And when they are through with it
It will look like the patch quilt my grandmother made
When she was learning to sew.
I hope you find a poem to carry with you today, one that will make you stop and think, one that will give you respite, one that will bring you joy.
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels
