Poem in Your Pocket Day 2016
Poem in Your Pocket Day – April 21, 2016 – is an international movement that encourages people to centre poetry within their daily interactions. On PIYP Day, select a poem, carry it with you, and share it with others at schools, bookstores, libraries, parks, workplaces, coffee shops, street corners, and on social media using the hashtag #PocketPoem.
This annual initiative is organized by the Academy of American Poets, celebrated with a free downloadable PDF booklet containing contemporary American and – since the League joined forces in 2016 – Canadian poetry to share.
For your French pocket poem needs, check out the booklet created by La poésie partout for La Journée du poème à porter.
The 2016 Poem in Your Pocket Poets are: Louise Glück, Joy Harjo, Juan Felipe Herrera, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirschfield, Marie Howe, Khaled Mattawa, W.S. Merwin, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alicia Ostriker, Marie Ponsot, Alberto Ríos, Arthur Size, Jean Valentine and C.D. Wright.
The Red Poppy
by Louise Glück
The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.
From The Wild Iris, published by The Ecco Press, 1992. Copyright © 1992 by Louise Glück. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
Louise Glück is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, including Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), which won the 2014 National Book Award in Poetry. Her other honors include the Pulitzer Prize and the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. In 1999, Glück was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and in the fall of 2003, she was appointed the twelfth U.S. Poet Laureate. She lives in Connecticut.
Remember
Joy Harjo
Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.
Copyright © 1983 by Joy Harjo from She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Joy Harjo’s poetry collections include Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W. W. Norton, 2015) and How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2002). In 2015, she received the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her other honors include the PEN Open Book Award and the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Here and There
by Juan Felipe Herrera
I sit and meditate—my dog licks her paws
on the red-brown sofa
so many things somehow
it all is reduced to numbers letters figures
without faces or names only jagged lines
across the miles half-shadows
going into shadow-shadow then destruction the infinite light
here and there cannot be overcome
it is the first drop of ink
Copyright © 2015 by Juan Felipe Herrera. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 14, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.
Juan Felipe Herrera is the current U. S. Poet Laureate and also serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He is the author of many collections of poetry, including Notes on the Assemblage (City Lights, 2015) and Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press, 2008), a recipient of the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. He lives in Fresno, California
Cotton Candy
by Edward Hirsch
We walked on the bridge over the Chicago River
for what turned out to be the last time,
and I ate cotton candy, that sugary air,
that sweet blue light spun out of nothingness.
It was just a moment, really, nothing more,
but I remember marveling at the sturdy cables
of the bridge that held us up
and threading my fingers through the long
and slender fingers of my grandfather,
an old man from the Old World
who long ago disappeared into the nether regions.
And I remember that eight-year-old boy
who had tasted the sweetness of air,
which still clings to my mouth
and disappears when I breathe.
From The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010) by Edward Hirsch. Copyright © 2010 by Edward Hirsch. Used with permission of the author.
Edward Hirsch is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Gabriel: A Poem (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), which was nominated for the National Book Award, as well as the national bestseller How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (Harcourt, 1999). He was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2008, and he currently serves as the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He lives in New York City.
The Weighing
by Jane Hirshfield
The heart’s reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.
As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
From The October Palace (Harper Perennial, 1994) by Jane Hirshfield. Copyright © 1994 by Jane Hirshfield. Used with permission of the author.
Jane Hirshfield’s poetry collections include The Beauty: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), which was nominated for the National Book Award, and Come, Thief (Alfred A. Knopf, 2011). In 2004, the Academy of American Poets awarded Hirshfield the Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement. Her other honors include the Poetry Center Book Award and numerous fellowships. She currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The Moment
by Marie Howe
Oh, the coming-out-of-nowhere moment
when, nothing
happens
no what-have-I-to-do-today list
maybe half a moment
the rush of traffic stops.
The whir of I should be, I should be, I should be
slows to silence,
the white cotton curtains hanging still.
Copyright © 2011 Marie Howe. Used with permission by the author.
Marie Howe’s poetry collections include The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W. W. Norton, 2008), which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Howe is the recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets Fellowship and has also received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institution, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in New York City.
Lyric
by Khaled Mattawa
Will answers be found
like seeds
planted among rows of song?
Will mouths recognize
the hunger
in their voices, all mouths in unison,
the ah in harmony, the way words
of hope are more
than truth when whispered?
Will we turn to each other and ask,
how long
has it been…how long since?
A world now, a world then
and each
is seeking a foothold, trying
to remember when we looked
at one another
and found—A world again—Surely
what we long for is at the wheel
contending.
Surely, we’ll soon hear
its unearthly groan.
From Tocqueville by Khaled Mattawa, published by New Issues Poetry & Prose. Copyright © 2010 Khaled Mattawa. Used with permission of New Issues Poetry & Prose.
Khaled Mattawa is the author of four poetry collections, including Tocqueville (New Issues, 2010), and he has also translated many volumes of contemporary Arabic poetry. He is the recipient of the 2010 Academy of American Poets Fellowship. Mattawa’s other honors include the PEN American Center Poetry Translation Prize and numerous. He currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Variation on a Theme
by W.S. Merwin
Thank you my life long afternoon
late in this spring that has no age
my window above the river
for the woman you led me to
when it was time at last the words
coming to me out of mid-air
that carried me through the clear day
and come even now to find me
for old friends and echoes of them
those mistakes only I could make
homesickness that guides the plovers
from somewhere they had loved before
they knew they loved it to somewhere
they had loved before they saw it
thank you good body hand and eye
and the places and moments known
only to me revisiting
once more complete just as they are
and the morning stars I have seen
and the dogs who are guiding me
From Collected Poems 1996–2011 by W. S. Merwin. Copyright © 2013 by W. S. Merwin. Reprinted by permission of The Library of America.
W. S. Merwin is the author of many books of poetry, including The Shadow of Sirius (Copper Canyon Press, 2008), which won the Pulitzer Prize, and Selected Translations (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), which
was awarded the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. His other honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement and the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He is a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2010 to 2011. He lives in Hawaii.
Burning the Old Year
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Naomi Shihab Nye is the author of several poetry collections, including Transfer (BOA Editions, 2011), as well as several children’s books. In 1988, she received the Academy of American Poets’ Lavan Award, and in 2009, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She has also received awards and fellowships from the International Poetry Forum and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.
The Dogs at Live Oak Beach,
Santa Cruz
by Alicia Ostriker
As if there could be a world
Of absolute innocence
In which we forget ourselves
The owners throw sticks
And half-bald tennis balls
Toward the surf
And the happy dogs leap after them
As if catapulted—
Black dogs, tan dogs,
Tubes of glorious muscle—
Pursuing pleasure
More than obedience
They race, skid to a halt in the wet sand,
Sometimes they’ll plunge straight into
The foaming breakers
Like diving birds, letting the green turbulence
Toss them, until they snap and sink
Teeth into floating wood
Then bound back to their owners
Shining wet, with passionate speed
For nothing,
For absolutely nothing but joy
Copyright © 1998 by Alicia Ostriker. Used with permission of the author.
Alicia Ostriker is the author of over ten books of poetry, including The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014), as well as several books of criticism. Her honors include the Paterson Poetry Award and the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America. She currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Springing
by Marie Ponsot
In a skiff on a sunrisen lake we are watchers.
Swimming aimlessly is luxury just as walking
loudly up a shallow stream is.
As we lean over the deep well, we whisper.
Friends at hearths are drawn to the one warm air;
strangers meet on beaches drawn to the one wet sea.
What wd it be to be water, one body of water
(what water is is another mystery) (We are
water divided.) It wd be a self without walls,
with surface tension, specific gravity a local
exchange between bedrock and cloud of falling and rising,
rising to fall, falling to rise.
(1962)
Excerpted from Springing by Marie Ponsot. Copyright © 2002 by Marie Ponsot. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced without permission in writing from the publisher.
Marie Ponsot is the author of several poetry collections, including Easy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009) and The Bird Catcher (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), which won the National Book Circle Award. Her honors include the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. She was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2010, and she lives in New York City.
When Giving Is All We Have
by Alberto Ríos
One river gives
Its journey to the next.
We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.
We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.
We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—
Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.
Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:
Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.
You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me
What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made
Something greater from the difference.
Copyright © 2014 by Alberto Ríos. Used with permission of the author.
Alberto Ríos is the author of several poetry collections, most recently A Small Story About the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). His honors include the 1981 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets and the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award. Ríos currently serves as the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona , as well as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.
The Owl
by Arthur Sze
The path was purple in the dusk.
I saw an owl, perched,
on a branch.
And when the owl stirred, a fine dust
fell from its wings. I was
silent then. And felt
the owl quaver. And at dawn, waking,
the path was green in the
May light.
From The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998. Copyright © 1998 by Arthur Sze. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.
Arthur Sze is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently Compass Rose (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). His honors include an American Book Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers magazine, a Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, and a Western States Book Award for Translation. Sze currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and he was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives.
Eleventh Brother
by Jean Valentine
Rone arm still a swan’s wing
The worst had happened before: love—before
I knew it was mine—
turned into a wild
swan and flew
across the rough water
Outsider seedword
until I die
I will be open to you as an egg
speechless red.
From Door in the Mountain. Copyright © 2004 by Jean Valentine. Reprinted with permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Jean Valentine is the author of several poetry collections, including Shirt in Heaven (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). She is the recipient of the 2009 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. Her other honors include the National Book Award and the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America. She lives in New York City.
Imaginary Morning Glory
by C.D. Wright
Whether or not the water was freezing. The body
would break its sheathe. Without layer on layer
of feather and air to insulate the loving belly.
A cloudy film surrounding the point of entry. If blue
were not blue how could love be love. But if the body
were made of rings. A loose halo would emerge
in the telluric light. If anyone were entrusted to verify
this rare occurrence. As the petal starts to
dwindle and curl unto itself. And only then. Love,
blue. Hallucinogenic blue, love.
Copyright © by C. D. Wright. Used with the permission of the author.
C. D. Wright was the author of several poetry collections, including ShallCross (Copper Canyon Press, 2016) and One With Others (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), which received the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Among her numerous honors are a Lannan Literary Award and a Whiting Award. Wright served as state poet of Rhode Island from 1994 to 1999, and in 2013, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She passed away in January, 2016.