#PocketPoems 2020: NYPL's Celebration of National Poetry Month
Each year, to celebrate National Poetry Month and Poem in Your Pocket Day, the New York Public Library asks poets to contribute a short, pocket-size poem that we share online and hand out in our branch libraries. This year we're not able to physically hand you a poem to tuck away, but we will be virtually handing out a new poem each day from over 30 contemporary poets. We hope you follow along online across the Library’s social media channels—find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Since this year marks The New York Public Library’s 125th anniversary, we asked poets to create a poem in response to an image that inspires them from NYPL's Digital Collection. (Curious about these images? Learn more about them courtesy of NYPL Collections Photographers.) We encourage you to explore NYPL’s Digital Collection and get inspired to write your own Pocket Poem! Share it with us on social media using the #PocketPoems hashtag.
April 30: Poem in Your Pocket Day
On this occasion of Poem In Your Poet Day, read, print, write, and share a pocket full of poems. We have a downloadable "pocket" for you to print as well as some poems (and space to write our own!).
The Heart is Not by Danusha Laméris
The Heart is Not
A pocket. A thing that
can be turned inside out
by anybody’s hand. Not
a place for pebbles or loose
change. Not to carry old
receipts. It does not tear
at the seam. It doesn’t have
a seam. It cannot be torn.
Find Danusha Laméris' work at the Library, visit her website and follow her on Twitter.
It's low tide on the sound by Rachel Miller
Momoyogusa = Flowers of a Hundred Generations by Sekka Kamisaka. Image ID: 1269916
It's low tide on the soundI walk out for air, we all walk out for air;
I look at the water and wait, willing up
a prehistoric fish, demanding a back
full of warty nubs and diamond studs
from the olive water. Waiting makes a
room, red curtains closing, opening,
closing, like red lips in twin peaks.
My fish fogs in, fogs out.
You can find Rachel Miller on Twitter and Instagram.
The Fox and the Mask by Robert Fernandez
The fox and the mask. Image ID: 409435
The Fox and the Mask
Aesop fable
in which
a fox is
startled
by a mask
and sez
a pity
you are
very fine
but empty
a pity
a mask
a theater
is empty
yet seems
alive
You can find Robert Fernandez' work at the Library and visit his website.
When I am a Fish by Shabnam Nadiya
Ornamental fish by George Bickham
When I am a Fish
When I am a fish, my maw—hungry—swallows
mansions, tamarisks, whirlpools, elephantine
egos, armies of supposition and conjecture
Like a snake, I unhinge. The might of empires
goes in next; my mouth wider and wider until
galaxies wait poised on my lips
When I am a fish, I swallow time whole: when you
find me, my eyes will be pebbles from a distant time
Find Shabnam Nadiya's work at the Library and visit her website.
MORE SOON by Izzy Casey
Flexitoon Puppets, Ltd., Image ID: TH-13089
Isadora Duncan: studies by Arnold Genthe. Image ID: ISADORA_0001VB
Isadora
Because pink
ice cubes crackle
in this cold sun
and everything
upends itself.
This life is bright.
A lemon
splits its skin
and gold wax drops into your palm.
You are born
one day in mid-Autumn, the surface of a pool so
static you must push through it like
wings struggling
through silk.
Red hearts swim out onto the lawn.Look—your landscape
sings us into silver
and it is really this pink-pink
grassland, it is really
our shadows shined clear as ark light.You can find Mary Hickman's work at the Library.
April 29: Untitled by Sara Beth Joren
Linguaggio del cuore. Image ID: 1600898
i keep a box
of the rare moments
where you aren’t perfect.
when you don’t shine
like a perfect sliver of sun,
finding my face.
i collect them to open later
when your box of mine fills up.
APRIL 28: Field Hospital by Micah Bateman
Old frame house on Fair Oaks battlefield, pierced by hundreds of bullets, and used as a hospital by Hooker's division. Image ID: G92F147_010F
Field HospitalTo make a house a hospital
Doesn't take much:
An open-air belligerent;
An inhabitant made patient
By a different quotient of respiration,
Or merely by waiting; a thin
Yesterday's broth; a salve of adhering water to cloth;
A cure made just by closing off.
Find Micah Bateman's work at the Library, visit his website and follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
APRIL 27: What Shall We Name the Baby? by Rachel Mannheimer
What shall we name the baby? Twenty-five hundred first names of girls and boys, whith their meanings, origins, nicknames, etc. Image ID: 1103820
What Shall We Name the Baby?
It was the year of Mona, Lorenzo, and Hattie.
Elena, William, and Ruth. A friend was on bed rest.
A friend miscarried. I asked Mona’s mother
what to send Hattie. I walked to the post office,
up through the cemetery. It was the year
we’d planned to marry, the year the fabric of the world
seemed ripped apart and so I hoped my dead mom might return.
I never stopped. My list of names just grew.
Visit Rachel Mannheimer's website and follow her on Twitter.
APRIL 26: Caves of the Ice King under Kauterskill Falls (MFY Dennis Coll 91-F90) by Christian Schlegel
Caves of the Ice King under Kauterskill Falls. Image ID: G91F090_022ZF
Caves of the Ice King under Kauterskill Falls (MFY Dennis Coll 91-F90)
“The Catskills provoked me into [ceaseless]
study, nearly three decades beyond the comple
tion of the dissertation,” writes Michael Ku
dish (The Catskill Forest: A History [2000])
(ii). “Future ... historians may locate all
the bark roads, ... the sawmills, all the
quarries, all the isolated groves of balsam
fir, and all the bogs” (iv).
Find Christian Schlegel's work at the Library and visit his website to learn more.
April 25: Hair in the Water by Emily Hunt
Traveller tree Singapore. Image ID: 4044504
Hair in the Water
the Traveller Tree stores
in each royal leaf sheath.Shredded daily by windthe high ends of them
twist for more sun.
Find Emily Hunt's work at the Library, learn more at her website and follow her on Instagram.
April 24: CITY OF WINGS by Margarita Engle
American Butterflies. Image ID: 806450
CITY OF WINGS
Rooftop garden high in the sky
butterflies help me feel like I
am the one whose dreams
can fly!
Find Margarita Engle's work at the Library, visit her website and follow her on Twitter.
April 23: THIS FAMILY— by Dilruba Ahmed
This family from Arkansas had one thousand dollars when they arrived in California. There are eleven children in family. They bought a forty acre piece of land on which they still owe one thousand dollars. Image ID: 57795443
THIS FAMILY—
their house made smaller
by California's expanse of green,
eleven children hungering
inside a caravan
of American desires. The wind-swept
trek ends here, with federal loans to irrigate
their dreams. The year is '38.
On the newly-bought plot that emptied
the strongbox, the oldest invokes
a single wish
with a scattering of seeds.
Find Dilruba Ahmed's work at the Library and visit her website.
April 22: my Japanese mother as Orpheus, with dementia by Lee Ann Roripaugh
New York City Ballet production of "Orpheus" showing lyre designed by Isamu Noguchi, choreography by George Balanchine upside down here (New York). Image ID: swope_776026
my Japanese mother as Orpheus, with dementia
she calls to ask if my dead father
has called me on the phone / no, I say
while a tiny flicker of electricity fireflies
up my spine / did he call you?
yes, she says, and then she looked for him –under the covers, behind the mirror –
she looked and looked, and he wasn’t there
he disappear, she says / (he disappear)
Find Lee Ann Lee Roripaugh's work at the Library.
April 21: Onward She Fights by Cara Dellatte
Belva Ann Lockwood, 1830-1917. Image ID: 1581273
Onward She Fights
Our ship is ready to set sail
Food for our children to eat
Makeup to soften our appearance
Tools to educate our souls
Yet we are stuck on dry land
Our ship will not move
Our rights are stagnant
Onward we shall go, Womans Rights, Womans Rights!
April 20: Pocket Poem by Dunya Mikhail
Song Sparrow by John L. Ridgway. Image ID: 821518
Pocket Poem
The cage owner reminds the sparrow:
life outside is inferno.
One day the sparrow flies away
and there in the heights,
overlooking the ruins of the world,
the sparrow discovers the cage owner was right.
It sings about the ruins,
a beautiful song with no walls.
Find Dunya Mikhail's work at the Library, visit her website, Twitter and Instagram.
April 19: Anti-Prophecy by Joy Ladin
Europe: a Prophecy [Frontispiece] by William Blake. Image ID: 1158113
Anti-Prophecy
I don't want a god who reaches down,
shaggy, sinewed, hair in his mouth,
bent on creating perfect circles
instead of one imperfect Earth,
pocked, peopled, salted-washed continents adrift
on melted rock. I want the God
who melts that rock. Who births; seeds; loves
what is instead of what should be.
Find Joy Ladin's work at the Library, visit her website or Twitter.
April 18: When I am ready to leave this place, by Brenda Morisse
Soleil couchant by Samuel Putnam Avery. Image ID: 1149394
When I am ready to leave this place,
When I am ready to leave this place,
I will have memorized its sunset. How the indigo
pours into the orange. How the sky crushes down
on the light, how the gold spreads across the horizon.
When I am ready to leave, I will have surrendered
my awe. I will have hardened my compassion. I will say,
“I am dying. I must pray for forgiveness.
Don’t bother me.”
April 17: Fee-Fi-Fo-Fun by Shannon Keller
Macy's Thanksgiving Parade by Percy Loomis Sperr. Image ID: 731239F
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fun
Fee-fi-fo-fun
Giant balloons enjoyed by everyone
Lest they escape
and ruin the cityscapeBut stilla smile
on every child's face
Shannon Keller is the Helen Bernstein Librarian for Periodicals and Journals. You can find her blog posts for the Library here.
April 16: WHAT MOVES ACROSS A BORDER? by Franny Choi
Immigrants undergoing medical examination by Edwin Levick. Image ID: 416754
WHAT MOVES ACROSS A BORDER?
Money. Trade negotiations. People with the right
papers. Pathogens. Car parts in truckfuls, streaming rights,
seasonal workers. Seeds. Certain birds. Religion and dialect.
Music, at the right volume. Human remains. Wireless signals,
calls to action, calls to prayer. Sisters separated for decades,
whose faces are as foreign to each other as the faces
of the dead. River water. Drones. Dictators in motorcades.
And longing—longing, most of all. And families. And storms.
Find Franny Choi's work at the Library including Soft Science, a selection from NYPL's Best Poetry Books of 2019. Learn more at her website or follow her on Twitter or Instagram.
April 15: Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415 CE) by Rebecca Lehmann
Phare de l'Egypte: Pharus Aegypti Alexandrina, miraculum mundi septmum. Image ID: 79758
Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415 CE)
Tremble, like the taut sails of imperial ships,
sent to maintain order; like riotous monks
burning temples; like the lighthouse flamingits hot warning. No stars anoint my night.
No unctuous spirit chariots me away.
Only the pierce of jagged oyster shells,
the astrolabe dropped in the dust,
library ablaze in the impossible distance.
Discover Rebecca's work at the Library, visit her website and follow her on Twitter.
April 14: Un chien tourné vers la droite by Jennie Xie
Un chien tourné vers la droite by Stefano Della Bella. Image ID: 5529818
Un chien tourné vers la droite
He turns to the right, sensing
I may spill ink over his creatureliness.
Wants no part in any theater.
Nothing of aulic language nor dulcet tones.
Need displeases when one touches
the middle of one’s life.
He pushes his taut gaze against
mine, then retracts.
A kind of address I have spent
a lifetime returning.
Find Jenny Xie's work at the Library, learn more at her website and follow her on Twitter.
April 13: Logs Left by Ian Fowler
Logs left in the woods by logging operations, illustrating the great waste of timber accompanying private ownership and exploitation by Russell Lee. Image ID: 57834397
Logs Left
Wasteland of intention
Left rotting
Signed “best”
In closing
April 12: The Kills by Moonlight by Marguerite Maria Rivas, Staten Island Poet Laureate
The Kills by moonlight by Isaac Almstaedt, Image ID: G91F288_008ZF
The Kills by Moonlight
We stand, feet planted
on the upper deck,
as we glide across dark waters
into a silvery band of spring
moonbeams. Our faces—
blue light and deep shade—
turn island-ward
toward home.
You can find Marguerite Maria Rivas at her website.
April 11: émigré by Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones
Cuban woman sitting in a chair and smoking a cigarette by Paul Reboux. Image ID: 1267522
émigré
I leave seastars, tortoiseshells at her altar
like someone who knows what they lost, pour
melao on Yemayá’s feet in a white petticoat. The to-co-co-ró of a white-bellied bird
who pecks at my throat, as if it knew. We are
two spent brides in the half-light. Still,
at daybreak, through the smoke of a prayer
I can almost make out the shape of an island.
Find Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones' work at the Library and learn more at her website.
April 10: Just a Minute by jayy dodd
Maude Russel and her Ebony Steppers - 1929 Cotton Club show "Just A Minute." Image ID: 5062801
Just A Minute
Girls gather for gratuitous gawking,
the review includes a parade. Flash
of jazz, colorstruck crowd of
cacophony clamoring. In Harlem,
Black Steppers on the second floor,
scantily clad cuties. Jive among jeers & the jungle sets for
tourist-patrons salivating at
something “savage”. Gyration is a
measure of time & rhythmania is
contagious.
Find jayy dodd's work at the Library, visit her website and find her on Twitter and Instagram.
April 9: Sonar, So Far by Jenny Inzerillo
Common Bat; Vampire Bat; Common Bat; Dog Headed Bat; Horseshoe Bat; Fruit Eating Bat, Image ID: 822029
Sonar, So Far
Have you read the news?
This is really batty.
Can you hear the mews?
They are really catty.
That’s right, I’m stuck at home
With my work and kitty,
Scribblin’ out a poem
And keepin’ it itty-bitty.
Check out Jenny Inzerillo's website, find her on Twitter and listen to her morning show.
April 8: Elysium of Dogs by Charles Cuykendall Carter
Biography of a Spaniel by William Hopwood, Image ID: 1711938
Elysium of Dogs
Shades of dead dogs congregate to air
grievances of my betrayals here,
despite the airlessness, on the moon.
The re-impounded carpet-staining hound,
the sheepdog who knocked Dad to the ground:
I let them down. The tumored schnauzer swoons.
The boxer, enlarged-hearted, casts the lone
defense: He loved us till we were gone.
April 7: ABDICATION by Safia Elhillo
Ex-King of Kano. Image ID: 1257562
ABDICATION
who have you been my fathers my abdicated root
dressed in white & vanished
& like my mothers before me i wrap you in white
i marry & mourn & am haunted in the unwatched night
i cleanse the air with smoke i avoid my eyes
in any mirror animal oils in my hair i mark the map
with caesurae mark the map with names of men
Check out Safia Elhillo's work on at the Library, her website, Twitter and Instagram.
April 6: Dream Keeper Redux by Willie Perdomo
Pedestrian by Walter Silver, Image ID: 5146999
Dream Keeper Redux
I'll love you
this poem
from the top
of my dome.
One dream
after another,
I’m almost
home.
Willie Perdomo's book, The Crazy Bunch, was included in NYPL's Best Poetry Books of 2019. Find his books at the Library and visit his website, Twitter and Instagram.
April 5: Eating Persimmon Acrobatically by Chantal Lee
Eating kaki acrobatically by Gyōsai Kawanabe. Image ID: 5894682
Eating Persimmon Acrobatically
While Tantalus reaches for the fruit
that hangs from a retreating branch
of a tree that belongs to an angry god,
these Japanese monks wait 100 years, tantalized
by the sweetening persimmons
slowly ripening from on high.
The doting gods bless the monks, stretching
their arms and legs
so that they can eat this fruit of many names
(Jove’s Fire, Divine Fruit, God’s Pear).
Enchanted, the monks slip on cinnamony juice.
You can find Chantal Lee on Instagram.
April 4: Accidental Elegy by Rob Schlegel
The pontic rhododendron by James Caldwall. Image ID: 1152356
Accidental Elegy
Intuition is important, if only for its imperfections
disguised as leaves, pale green
in a period-piece about a period
about to happen. You develop in silence
new ways of speaking, but what will you kill
in order to see? You can almost feel
the rhododendron's slightly malicious
intelligence. Who will remember
your face? The dead dry leaves are more than a feeling,
they're the air you breathe to change.
You can find Rob Schlegel's books at NYPL and through his website. You can also find him on Twitter and Instagram.
April 3: Suppose by Alison C. Rollins
Southeast Missouri Farms. Son of a sharecropper dressing in a combination of bedroom and corn crib, 1938 by Russell Lee. Image ID: 1260164
Suppose
We are all heads of corn
In God’s hands. Our ears green
With naiveté, we listen to the sun
Sing yellow through the window.
Suppose on Tuesdays God wears a tie.
Suppose God was the son of a share-
Cropper. Suppose the bed we make
Is not a lie, but a quilted fabrication.
Check out Alison's book, Library of Small Catastrophes, chosen as one of NYPL's Best Poetry Books of 2019, and visit her website, Twitter and Instagram.
April 2: Recognition (To the planet Mars, 1877) by Julie Swarstad Johnson
The planet Mars: Observed September 3, 1877, at 11h. 55m. P.M., by E.L. Trouvelot, Image ID: TROUVELOT_008
Recognition (To the planet Mars, 1877)
Light catches beyond us and we
see flame, see a bee above a bud’s tight curl
or we feel the rustle of motion behind a door
shut tight, distance on the edge of collapse
for that figment of our minds glimpsed
in the eyepiece, the glass unmoved
against our lashes’ fluttering, a pulse
hammering deep in your luminous throat.
Find Julie Swarstad Johnson at her website or on Instagram.
April 1: PENELOPE by Yanyi
Momoyogusa = Flowers of a Hundred Generations by Sekka Kamisaka. Image ID: 1269883
PENELOPE
I never meant to leave from love.
But this bedpost made in Ithaca
has not been moved. Is even stronger.
Your hands are shaped the same
but smaller. My sheets are dark
from honey whet with sun.
I unweave your hair.
The moon is dark when I lift it up.
Check out Yanyi's website or find him on Instagram and Twitter. Yanyi's book, The Year of Blue Water, was included in NYPL's Best Poetry Books of 2019.