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RELATED EVENTS & RESOURCES


ReadWriteThink Classroom Activity
Help your students celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day.

POEMS ABOUT POCKETS


Blankets of Bark
by Sherwin Bitsui

Chaplinesque
by Hart Crane

Broadway
by Mark Doty

At the Playground, Singing for Psychiatric Outpatients
by Peter Everwine

At the Public Market Museum: Charleston, South Carolina
by Jane Kenyon

Pockets
by Howard Nemerov

A Sock Is a Pocket for Your Toes (an excerpt)
by Elizabeth Garton Scanlon
Poem In Your Pocket Day Print

Poem In Your Pocket Day

Celebrate national Poem In Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 29, 2010!

The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends on April 29, 2010.

Poems from pockets will be unfolded throughout the day with events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces, and bookstores. Create your own Poem In Your Pocket Day event using ideas below or let us know how your plans, projects, and suggestions for Poem In Your Pocket Day by emailing npm@poets.org.

Put Poems In Pockets

In this age of mechanical and digital reproduction, it's easy to carry a poem, share a poem, or start your own PIYP day event. Here are some ideas of how you might get involved:

  • Start a "poems for pockets" give-a-way in your school or workplace
  • Urge local businesses to offer discounts for those carrying poems
  • Post pocket-sized verses in public places
  • Handwrite some lines on the back of your business cards
  • Start a street team to pass out poems in your community
  • Distribute bookmarks with your favorite immortal lines
  • Add a poem to your email footer
  • Post a poem on your blog or social networking page
  • Project a poem on a wall, inside or out
  • Text a poem to friends
  • Help us expand the list: send your ideas to npm@poets.org.

    Need a Poem for Your Pocket?

    Along with your library, bookstore, or shelf at home, you can find the perfect poem for your pocket by browsing Poets.org, or by signing up to receive a poem from new spring poetry titles each day during April.

    Download pocket-sized Poem PDFs to print and share:

    Poem in Your Pocket anthology

    More than a pocketful of poetry, the new and interactive Poem in Your Pocket anthology features 200 tear-and-share pages of poetry. Flip to the "Love & Rockets" section and surprise your sweetheart with a poem. Feeling nostalgic or wistful? Take a poem from the selection in "Friends & Ghosts" or "Sonic Youth." Whether you're a fan of Shakespeare or Sexton, O'Hara or Dickinson, this anthology has a poem for everyone.

    Poem In Your Pocket History

    Poem In Your Pocket Day has been celebrated each April in New York City since 2002. Each year, city parks, bookstores, workplaces, and other venues burst with open readings of poems from pockets. Even the Mayor gets in on the festivities, reading a poem on the radio. For more information on New York City’s celebration, visit nyc.gov/poem.

    Highlights from past Poem In Your Pocket Day events.

    Poems have been stowed in pockets in a variety of ways, from the commonplace books of the Renaissance to the pocket-sized publications for Army soldiers in World War II. Have a story about the marriage of the poem and the pocket? Send them to npm@poets.org.

    Poets.org In Your Pocket

    Poetry on the go: visit the Academy's mobile poetry archive to read our collection of more than 2,500 poems, as well as poet biographies and historical essays. Poets.org mobile site puts poetry at your fingertips, anytime and anywhere. Learn more >

    To pull poetry from your pocket every day of the year simply go to www.poets.org/m on any mobile device. For a preview, click here.

    Pocket Partners

    Poem In Your Pocket Day is made possible, in part, by the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Booksellers Association, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

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