Poem in Your Pocket

Each April since 1996, the Academy of American Poets has led a celebration of the legacy and achievement of American poetry. This month people will gather in schools, colleges, and universities in all fifty states to read aloud favorite poems. Schools and libraries will display the 2011 poster (at left), which this year the line "bright objects hypnotize the mind" from Elizabeth Bishop's poem "A Word with You." This year marks the centennial celebration of Bishop’s life. On April 27, 2011, the Academy of American Poets will present its ninth annual benefit, Poetry & The Creative Mind, at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, where artists and other public figures will read from works of contemporary poets. This year’s guest readers include Meryl Streep, Uma Thurman, Live Schreiber, Michael Cunningham, and Alec Baldwin.


During my years in the classroom, I read in campus read-a-thons, sometimes from poems I had lived with and loved for many years, sometimes from my own work; I led discussions about poems in my classes; I attended poetry parties where quotes from Shakespeare and Shelley filled the air, along with toasts to Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens. I have missed those public celebrations over the past few years. The blog provides a venue for a celebration that extends beyond my home, but I couldn’t seem to come up with a way to connect poetry to reading and writing romance fiction. Then I hit a wall in my WIP. I rewrote one scene so many times I lost count and finally gave up. That evening I read a poem, and it led to a eureka moment. In minutes I had the scene that I had lost hope of writing. From that experience came the idea for this blog.

Thursday, April 14 is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Throughout the day, people in libraries, schools, bookstores, and workplaces will be sharing with family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors poems that are carrying in their pockets. The Academy of American Poets suggests that online communities can participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day by posting a poem on a blog or social networking page. I’m going to extend that idea and post a pocket poem here each day this week. And each of the poems will be one that I see as potential inspiration for a scene in a romance novel. On Thursday, the official Poem in Your Pocket Day, I’ll post the poem that inspired my scene and share a snippet from the scene with you.


Sunday’s Pocket Poem: Diamonds by Kathryn Stripling Byer

This, he said, giving the hickory leaf
to me. Because I am poor.
And he lifted my hand to his lips,
kissed the fingers that might have worn
gold rings if he had inherited

bottomland, not this
impossible rock where the eagles soared
after the long rains were over. He stood
in the wet grass, his open hands empty,
his pockets turned inside out.

Queen of the Meadow, he teased me
and bowed like a gentleman.
I licked the diamonds off the green
tongue of the leaf, wanting only

that he fill his hands with my hair.

Monday’s Pocket Poem: Recuerdo by Edna St. Vincent Millay


We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

Tuesday’s Pocket Poem: Golden Oldie by Rita Dove

I made it home early, only to get
stalled in the driveway-swaying
at the wheel like a blind pianist caught in a tune
meant for more than two hands playing.
The words were easy, crooned
by a young girl dying to feel alive, to discover
a pain majestic enough
to live by. I turned the air conditioning off,
leaned back to float on a film of sweat,
and listened to her sentiment:
Baby, where did our love go?-a lament
I greedily took in
without a clue who my lover
might be, or where to start looking.

Wednesday's Pocket Poem: The Look by Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,

      Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
      And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
      Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes
      Haunts me night and day.

Thursday's Pocket Poem: What a Woman Wants by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.

I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.

Note: Serendipitously, this is the same poem that Terri O. posted as her pocket poem in the comment section yesterday. No collusion, I assure you. :) Just two women responding to the same powerful poem.

Here's the promised snippet from the scene inspired by "What a Woman Wants" (Keep in mind please that it is this WIP is still in the rough draft stage.):

“I want this one.”


“Honey, are you sure? That’s definitely a burning-bridges dress.” Saja’s voice was soft, tentative, almost a whisper, as if a louder noise might upset Zan’s careful balance.

“I’m ready to burn bridges.” Zan's words were emphatic. She swung to face her friends, catching them exchanging a look that said as clearly as words “Zan’s not herself.”

Even they didn’t know how sick she was of her Griselda self that turned the other cheek and turned away wrath. Anger burned in her, hotter than the August sun that steamed the sidewalks of Gentry. She wanted to let it explode and destroy forever the good girl who thought if she played by the rules long enough, she’d be forgiven and win the prize. Caleb’s final words to her hammered in her head. Well, she’d show him. She’d show them all. She was nobody’s angel, and that dress, that scarlet dress with sin written in every thread, was just what she needed to light the funeral pyre of the passive creature she’d been for too long.

Friday's Pocket Poem: Some Notes on Courage by Susan Ludvigson

Think of a child who goes out

into the new neighborhood,
cap at an angle, and offers to lend
a baseball glove. He knows
how many traps there are—
his accent or his clothes, the club
already formed.
Think of a preganant woman
whose first child died—
her history of blood.
Or your friend whose father
locked her in basements, closets,
cars. Now when she speaks
to strangers, she must have
all the windows open.
She forces herself indoors each day,
sheer will makes her climb the stairs.
And love. Imagine it. After all
those years in the circus, that last
bad fall when the net didn’t hold.
Think of the ladder to the wire,
spotlights moving as you move,
then how you used to see yourself
balanced on the shiny air.
Think of doing it again.

Saturday's Pocket Poem: Poem #245 by Emily Dickinson

I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: " 'T will keep."

I woke and chid my honest fingers, --
The gem was gine;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.





I invite you to share a pocket poem with us. What ideas for scenes does “Diamonds” give you?