Poem in your Pocket Day - April 29, 2022

For the last several years, UWSP Libraries has celebrated National Poetry Month in April with our key event being Poem in your Pocket Day, April 29, 2022. 

This year, we will have poems available in various locations around campus for you to take, enjoy, and share. Be on the lookout on Friday, April 29. 

We also have a great collection of featured Poems from Home recordings from the following UWSP campus contributors:

·   David Arnold (English) reads “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens.

·   Michael Estanich (Theatre & Dance) reads “Falling Ship,” his original poem.

·   Sue Kissinger (Academic and Career Advising Center) reads “There Once was a Puffin,” by Florence Page Jaques.

·   Carrie Kline (University Library) read “Yes,” by Rudy Francisco.

·   Kyle Neill (University Archives) reads “Annabel Lee,” by Edgar Allen Poe.

·   Laurie Petri (UWSP Marshfield Library) reads “The River’s Gift,” by Peggy Turnville.

·   Gretel Stock (University College) reads “My Courageous Life,” by David White.

·   Chris Yahnke (Wildlife Ecology) reads “Rainstick,” by Seamus Heaney.

Please take a 10 minute and 20 second break and listen to your colleagues as they share their love of poetry.

We also encourage you to celebrate this day by taking a few moments to read and share a poem, and here are a few tips to help:

• Select a poem and share it on social media using the hashtag #pocketpoem. 
• Share one of the recorded Poems from Home readings from the UWSP Libraries Guide 
• 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. 
• Make a poetry playlist.

Thank you for celebrating with us, and we leave you with this poem:

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye - 1952-

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.