Poem In Your Pocket Day-April 18

National Poem in Your Pocket Day 

http://www.poets.org/academy-american-poets/programs/national-poem-your-pocket-day 

About PIYP Day 
http://www.nyc.gov/html/poem/html/about/about.shtml

Poem in Your Pocket Day

https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/poem-in-your-pocket-day/ 

Participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day!

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/calendar-activities/participate-poem-your-pocket-20720.html 

Such a difficult choice-which poem? "The Raven"? "The Road Not Taken"? "Hope Is A Thing With Feathers"? I'm torn between a poem previously in my pocket-"The Rainy Day" by Longfellow- and tucking e e cummings' "anyone lived in a pretty how town"  back there. Hey, since there is no rule about only one poem in one pocket, maybe I'll put on my cargo pants and live it up!

What Does Poetry Do?

Poetry brings us immediately to the top of Bloom's Taxonomy of higher level thinking, triggering the growth of synapses in our brains as we struggle for personal meaning in the verse. Poetry satisfies our daily emotional nutritional requirements for serendipity, musical language, inspiration, mental challenge, comfort, schmaltz, and frequently, humor. Poetry is packaged in mystery, mathematical meter, and personal validation--equity in our own interpretations.

National Poetry Month: Poem #8

i carry your heart with me  

by E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart) 

E. E. Cummings

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/e-e-cummings

National Poetry Month: Poem #7

  “Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)

By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

This is such a precious metaphor. Thank you, Emily.

Emily Dickinson 1830–1886

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/emily-dickinson

National Poetry Month: Poem #6

Diverging roads.

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

 Robert Frost 

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/192

National Poetry Month: Whoa, Dude!

Would be a 'whoa, dude!' experience

That's awesome! Not exactly what Wordsworth said, but almost. This is a very famous poem with lots of mixed metaphors, but still great for this time of year with all the tulips and daffodils popping up.

The serendipity (happy surprise) expressed in this poem is like the opposite of PTSD--the memory of the experience brings refreshing joy and satisfying peace, as experiences in nature often do.

  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Wandered_Lonely_as_a_Cloud
The theme of feeling a part of nature and having joy in reflecting back on a beautiful experience is worth reading this poem with kids. Plus, they will meet 'I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud'  many times in English literature class. I do like the daffodils dancing spritely. Personification does it for me every time.

in Just
by e e cumming

http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/in_just.html
Springtime is an excellent time for teaching poetry because it seems poets get very inspired during this season. e. e. cummings even made up new words for spring--mudluscious (You can hear your galoshes go schluppp as you try to extract them out of the newly melted snow/mud. Like hot fudge being pulled out of a sundae. That's mudluscious.) And everyone knows what puddlewonderful is; none of us resist splashing in a puddle. Of course, we in SoCal can't fully appreciate the ecstacy that the folks Back East experience having a puddle to splash after everything freezes for half the year--but we sort of empathize.

That's not eddieandbill or bettyandisbel. Maybe its bettyandeddie or isbelandbill; or bettyandbill or isbelandeddie.

 Kids also love music. So it is no surprise that Spring from Vivaldi would really tickle them with the marvelous sounds of a  spring day--that they can identify on their walk to and from school. The music even sounds like flowers burst-blooming in the sun.

Spring by Vivaldi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRxofEmo3HA
Performed by the Budapest Strings.

National Poetry Month: Poems # 4 and #5

Harlem

By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes biography

  http://www.biography.com/people/langston-hughes-9346313

 

Mother to Son

By Langston Hughes

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on,

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now—

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

National Poetry Month: Poem #3

Photo by Shane, Wargave, England

 Summer Song

Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,–
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer’s smile,–
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

- William Carlos Williams

National Poetry Month: Poem #2

The Fall of Icarus by Bruehgal

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

William Carlos Williams 

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring 

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry 

of the year was
awake tingling
with itself 

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax 

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was 

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning 

 William Carlos Williams

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams

Icarus

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus

Jim Henson's The Storyteller Daedalus and Icarus

 http://www.tv.com/shows/jim-hensons-the-storyteller/daedalus-and-icarus-1598028/