Have a Poem in Your Pocket This Month

As part of National Poetry Month, one event is the simple act of sharing a #PocketPoem on Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 18, 2024.

Of course, any day can be the day to do this, but this month in particular seems right.  

There is a downloadable pdf of some poems you might use

Here are a few of their suggestions on what to do that day - or any day

1. Select a poem and share it on social media using the hashtag #PocketPoem. 
2. Record a video of yourself reading a poem, then share it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or another social media platform you use. 
3. Email a poem to your friends, family, neighbors, or local government leaders.
4. Read a poem to a loved one - in person or by phone
5. Add a poem to your email footer.
6. Be brave and read a poem out loud (Maybe your own poem?) from your porch, window, backyard, or some outdoor space. 

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Follow this blog for all things poetry.
To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
visit our website at poetsonline.org

Prompt: Double Meanings

On my first reading of Seamus Heaney's poem "Scaffolding," the meaning that came to me with the title was not that of those structures used on buildings. Instead, I thought of how it was used in teaching and lesson design. That usage of scaffolding is a teaching method where teachers provide support to students as they learn new concepts or skills. One version is known as "I do. We do. You do," where the teacher demonstrates, lets the class try, and then the students practice on their own.

Heaney starts with the most common meaning of scaffolding as it is used on buildings during construction. By the end of this short poem, he has moved to a more figurative scaffolding - one that holds up a relationship until it can stand on its own.

For this month's call for submissions, we look at words that have double meanings. I say "double" but clearly there are many words with multiple meanings. Your poem should have as its title a single word. The poem should move from one meaning to at least one other meaning. The key is to have the multiple meanings connected. You might use Heaney's model of the commonly accepted meaning moving to another more abstract or figurative one.

The deadline for submissions for the next issue is April 30, 2024.
Please refer to our submission guidelines and look at our archive of 25 years of prompts and poems.

Seamus Heaney was born on April 13, 1939, in Castledawson, County Derry, Northern Ireland. In 1965, he married Marie Devlin, and the following year he published Death of a Naturalist (Oxford University Press, 1966). Heaney produced numerous collections of poetry, including Opened Ground (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), which was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and more. He also wrote several volumes of criticism, and translation, including Beowulf (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000), which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award. Heaney was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust For Excellence in Poetry. In 1995, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Seamus Heaney passed away in Dublin on August 30, 2013. He was 74.

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Follow this blog for all things poetry.
To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
visit our website at poetsonline.org

It's National Poetry Month 2024

Each year the month of April is set aside as National Poetry Month in America, a time to celebrate poets and their craft. Various events are held throughout the month by the Academy of American Poets and other poetry organizations.

Need a daily read this month? Try their Poem-a-Day feature. Write a poem to one of Poets Online's many prompts from our archive. Try our latest prompt and submit something this month for our next issue.

The 2024 poster shown at the top (get a free copy) features artwork by award-winning children’s author and illustrator Jack Wong, and lines from “blessing the boats” by Lucille Clifton

and may you in your innocence 
sail through this to that

read the full poem

read Clifton

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Follow this blog for all things poetry.
To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
visit our website at poetsonline.org

Prompt: The Fragrance of Memory

Kenneth Rexroth's poem, "Proust’s Madeleine" (from his collection The Collected Shorter Poems) alludes to novelist Marcel Proust, the author of the multi-volume novel À la recherche du temps perdu, translated as In Search of Lost Time (and also previously as Remembrance of Things Past).

The "Madeleine Effect" is the sparking of a memory from a related object. For Proust, it was a madeleine cookie and cup of tea, and for Rexroth, poker chips. Though Rexroth's memory of his father comes from an object rather than a fragrance, he includes "His breath smelling richly / Of whiskey and cigars."

I believe that many memories have an attachment to a fragrance, pleasant or not. There is a clear but mysterious connection between fragrance and memory. I don't want to get stuck in the science of it (limbic system, amygdala, and hippocampus) but research has shown that memories associated with smells are more likely to be remembered. Why? Because they are more emotionally evocative and vivid autobiographical memories tend to be the result of emotional events.  

We gathered submissions back in 2005 about memories triggered by objects, but for this call for submissions, we ask for poems about memories triggered by fragrances. I use the more poetic word "fragrance" which suggests something pleasant, but your memory might be better described as an odor or smell.

Click the link if you want to learn a bit more about that Proust cookie connection and read the relevant passage.

The deadline for submissions for the next issue is March 31, 2024

Please refer to our submission guidelines and look at our
 archive of 25 years of prompts and poems.

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Follow this blog for all things poetry.
To see our past prompts and more than 300 issues,
visit our website at poetsonline.org