Poem in Your Pocket Day

From Poets.org

I'm not a poetry girl. Some folks live for them, and I say all the power to those people, but they really aren't my thing. For years poetry units in school would fill me with dread, and to be quite honest they still do. I'm apparently not the only one either: my school only put up their National Poetry Month poster this week (yikes.)

That changed in ninth grade. I was in an advanced English class with other kids I had shared English with for years, but even that didn't lessen the unpleasantness of our poetry unit. We has this thick green book that was a hassle to carry around, and God help you if you dropped it on your toe (or someone else's.) We were instructed to find a poem in the book to share in front of the class. I flipped and flipped through that book, and eventually I stumbled across a poem I... liked. One of the first poems I had read that wasn't about flowers, trees, or feelings of existentialism through birds. It was gritty, it was honest, it was sarcastic, albeit is was still about plants.*

And I want to share it with you, because that's what National Poetry Month and, by extension, Poem in Your Pocket Day , April 26th, is all about. Find a poem and share one with a friend, with a stranger, with anyone.

And especially share it with that quiet ninth grader who sits in the back of your second period English class and most likely hates poetry.

*If you're curious, it's by Carl Sandburg and titled "Grass." It can be found at the Poetry Archive if you're interested in reading it. I still buy his books today, and he's the only poet that I will read on a regular basis or for *gasp*, fun.