National Poetry Month: Week 4

To wrap up National Poetry Month, Kym, Kat, Sarah, and I are sharing Poems for Your Pocket. Poem in Your Pocket Day is actually tomorrow, but maybe our posts today will inspire you to share some poetry tomorrow. 

I've been struck by how green things are getting in my neighborhood, so I'm going to share a short-ish poem that seems quite fitting for this time of year.

Instructions on Not Giving Up
by Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, 
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

Limón, Ada. "Instructions on Not Giving Up". Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 15, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

You can find out more about the poet here.

Here are some suggestions about ways to participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day from Poets.org:

It's easy to participate in Poem in Your Pocket Day from a safe distance. Here are some ideas of how you might get involved:

• Select a poem and share it on social media using the hashtag #PocketPoem. 
• Print a poem from the Poem in Your Pocket Day PDF and draw an image from the poem in the white space, or use the instructions on pages 57-58 of the PDF to make an origami swan. 
• Record a video of yourself reading a poem, then share it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or another social media platform you use. 
• Email a poem to your friends, family, neighbors, or local government leaders.
• Schedule a video chat and read a poem to your loved ones.
• Add a poem to your email footer.
• Read a poem out loud from your porch, window, backyard, or outdoor space.

Be sure to check in with Kym, Kat, and Sarah for more poems for your pocket today, and feel free to make others' days a little bit more poetic tomorrow by sharing a poem at work, the grocery store, the bank, the post office, or around your own dinner table. (And remember that any time is good for poetry, not just Thursdays in April!)