Poem in Your Pocket Day came two weeks early this year! What’s up with that?

This year I’m going classic and pocket-sized, with my main man, Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Heaven—Haven

A nun takes the veil

I have desired to go
Where springs not fail,
To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail
And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be
Where no storms come,
Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,
And out of the swing of the sea.

::

What’s your poem this year?

I decided to go all multimedia on your asses this year. Granted, I can’t carry these particular poems in my pocket since I just have an old school music-only iPod and a cell phone that’s stretched to the limit taking still photos, but I know I’m alone in 2004 on both counts, so get down with some poetry wherever ye be:

Peter Mulvey, “The Dreams”

Ivan E Coyote, “To all the kick-ass, beautiful, fierce, full-bodied femmes out there…”

…and I was going to hunt down some Sherman Alexie for y’all too, but I lost my internet connection and then my motivation. Mostly I was annoyed with myself for not going to his reading this week at the shiny new Elliott Bay Books. Just because I’ve seen him read at least six times is no reason to stay home, not even to clean the apartment before maintenance came by. Don’t make my same mistakes!

There was a blog post somewhere earlier this year where people were supposed to comment with authors they thought should have rock tour style tees made up. I suggested Alexie, and I stand by that decision. I would totally buy one. And then he’d mock us all for wearing them, while not-so-secretly loving it. And now I am going to stop this entry before it turns into a total fan letter to Alexie. It’s embarrassing, particularly because if any author has a Google alert set up for themselves, it’s him.

You people shouldn’t still be reading anyway. You should be watching that Ivan E Coyote clip. It’s fantastic.

Today, as part of National Poetry Month, NYC hosts Poem in Your Pocket Day. I wasn’t sure what to post for it, until I remembered one I posted at the old journal a few years ago.

I first saw it in the Breathe Poetry community on LiveJournal. It’s even more appropriate this year, which is apparently the year of Toxic Family Issues, if only in my own mind. It (as well as a peom of sorts by me on the same theme) lives after the jump. Continue Reading