It’s Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day! As always, I had several poems in my pockets. I’ve been telling my students about this for weeks now. Yesterday, to make sure they were prepared for the day, I brought a bunch of poems to class so that students could choose one for their pockets.
And choose they did. I hadn’t expected them to be quite so excited and excitable about it, though, I have to admit. I had to back away from the table where I’d laid out the poems, give them more space. One student actually copied out a Shelley poem for me (“Not for your pocket, I just thought you’d like it.”), and I had students arguing over who Hughes’ “Harlem Night Song” and Georgia Douglas Johnson’s “I Want to Die While You Love Me” belonged to. I finally had to go make extra copies of both poems to avert a crisis!
And today marks the end of my tanka-a-day challenge:
Langston’s words pull me
swing me, laugh and dance with me
settle inside me
I love so many poets
but always hear his voice first
Thanks, everyone, for all your tanka encouragement. Even those of you (who shall remain nameless) who were over my all-tanka-all-the-time stance pretty quickly … even you inspired me to keep finding and writing another and another still! I’ve actually written thirty-five tanka this month!