April 26, 2012

Poem in Your Pocket Day

by

With National Poetry Month coming to an end soon, poetry fans are taking advantage of Thursday’s Poem in Your Pocket Day, which is exactly what it sounds like: people celebrating will choose a favorite poem and keep it in their pocket to share with friends, loved ones, coworkers, or anybody who might appreciate it.

NPR’s Morning Edition reports on several individuals and their creative plans for the day, including a UN employee who will pass out poems by the subway, a teacher whose 90 students will each bring in a poem to write in chalk on the school’s courtyard, and sandwich shop owner Jon LaPanta, who says of his customers:

Usually they get a chocolate chip cookie with their sandwich…But on Thursday they’ll get a poem. And usually they don’t know about it, and they’re like, “What the heck is this?” They open it up, and it’s always the same expression. They read, they look at it again, and then they’ll smile and look back at us and thank us.

It does sound very nice, but hopefully they’ll get the poem in addition to the cookie, and not have to forfeit their sugar fix. If you’re looking for Poem in Your Pocket Day ideas, you can check out Poets.org for inspiration.

Nick Davies is a publicist at Melville House.

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