That Poem In Your Pocket Should Be Shared

Yesterday was Poem in your Pocket Day. I love this annual celebration of carrying poems around to share.

All day long in school, I had a folded poem sticking up out of my shirt pocket, and during each of my writing classes, I would take it out with great fanfare and read it to my students.

Which poem?

Words are Birds by Francisco Alarcon.

words
are birds
that arrive
with books
and spring

they
love
clouds
the wind
and trees

some words
are messengers
that come
from far away
from distant lands

for them
there are
no borders
only stars
moon and sun

some words
are familiar
like canaries
others are exotic
like the quetzal bird

some can stand
the cold
others migrate
with the sun
to the south

some words
die
caged—
they’re difficult
to translate

and others
build nests
have chicks
warm them
feed them

teach them
how to fly
and one day
they go away
in flocks

the letters
on this page
are the prints
they leave
by the sea

Then, I gave each student a different poem, as a gift, from a collection of poems that I had downloaded last year from Poem In Your Pocket Day, and we spent part of the class just reading the poems out loud, letting the words dance in the air, sharing the writing.
Finally, all of my sixth graders folded up their poems and put them in their pocket for the day. They got a kick out of that.
“At recess,” a student in one of my later classes shared, just before I read out Words are Birds, “all my friends were pulling poems out of their pockets and reading me their poems.”
Another student knew of the Poem in the Pocket event, from home.
“My mom and my dad put poems in their pockets today,” he said, before folding up his own, too, which he intended to share with his parents later.

Peace (sharing poems),
Kevin

4 Comments
  1. Kevin that was absolutely awesome. I love poetry and although I do share it with some friends I have always been afraid of sharing it in public. Loved words are birds.

    Pablo Sevilla

  2. Kevin, I loved reading that blog post. I think poetry is so much fun to read and the kids can really be creative with it and I think that sharing it with each other is HUGE. Love poems about birds and the collaboration.

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