Poem in Your Pocket Day
Thursday is National Poem in Your Pocket Day.
The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends on April 17.
I think all fiction writers should read poetry, and lots of it. It helps form connections in the mind, linking words in new, unusual ways. When I write, I think of my novel as one, long poem – to me, that means using as few words as possible to create my story, using vivid word pictures, and paying attention to the cadence of each sentence alone, and paragraphs together. And, when I’m stuck, I sometimes write a scene in (non-rhyming) verse; it helps focus my attention on the “guts” of what I’m trying to say.
So, what poem will you carry in your pocket Thursday?
I’m thinking William Carlos Williams:
This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos WilliamsI have eaten
the plums
that were in
the iceboxand which
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Well, I missed the April 17th date, but here is the poem I would put in my pocket…I’m sure you are familiar with it.
The Road Less Traveled…
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost
Hugs~Traci
I missed it to, but the poem would be.
by John Donne
HOLY SONNETS.
XIV.
Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Bill,
My literature kids *hated* John Donne! I still threaten them with him when they complain about other readings – “Well, we can always read more Donne…”
They weren’t all that enthralled with W.C. Williams, either, ’cause he doesn’t rhyme.
Donne would have done me in at that age. Even at my age he takes effort. I have loved, “Batter My Heart” for years for it’s honesty and since I relate.