TODAY
Frank O’ Hara [1950]
Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas!
You really are beautiful! Pearls,
harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all
the stuff they’ve always talked about
still makes a poem a surprise!
These things are with us every day
even on beachheads and biers. They
do have meaning. They’re strong as rocks.
April 30th is the 2nd annual (7th here in NYC) Poem In Your Pocket Day, part of National Poetry Month. We’ll let the Academy of American Poets explain it:
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
Here’s a selection of Recent NYU Press series and books of and about poetry:
The Collected Writings of Walt Whitman
Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn
Irish Poetry: An Interpretive Anthology from Before Swift to Yeats and After
The Beginning of Terror: A Psychological Study of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Life and Work
