Warm-Up Bonus #1: Poem in Your Pocket Day

Don't forget:  April 14 is Poem In Your Pocket Day!
(sponsored by the National Poetry Foundation)

We'll gather both here and at ActionReaders.com to share our poems.

Shoot me an email at actionreaders@gmail.com OR sign up on our ActionReaders.com website for a chance to win one of the two collections below.  In your email, let me know what poem you're considering, then come on back on Thursday, April 14, and post your poem both here (and in your own "pocket" blog, if you're a blogger).  We'll link our blogposts and/or offer our poems in the "comments" section here.

Let's make this a terrific celebration, in solidarity with the National Poetry Foundation, poets.org, students, teachers, writers, readers, and poetry lovers all over the world!

Here's a fine one that my mom sent me yesterday.  Consider it for Poem In Your Pocket Day on Thursday?

The nifty prizes (let me know which one you'd prefer when you email your intended poem to actionreaders@gmail.com):

Happy Poetry Month, everybody!

MFB,
L

Imperfection

I am falling in love

      with my imperfections

The way I never get the sink really clean,

forget to check my oil,

lose my car in parking lots,

miss appointments I have written down,

am just a little late.

I am learning to love

      the small bumps on my face

      the big bump of my nose,

      my hairless scalp,

chipped nail polish,

toes that overlap.

Learning to love

      the open-ended mystery

            of not knowing why

I am learning to fail

      to make lists,

      use my time wisely,

      read the books I should.

Instead I practice inconsistency,

      irrationality, forgetfulness.

Probably I should

hang my clothes neatly in the closet

all the shirts together, then the pants,

send Christmas cards, or better yet

a letter telling of

      my perfect family.

But I'd rather waste time

listening to the rain,

or lying underneath my cat

     learning to purr.

I used to fill every moment

     with something I could

          cross off later.

Perfect was

     the laundry done and folded

     all my papers graded

     the whole truth and nothing      but

Now the empty mind is what I seek

      the formless shape

      the strange      off center

      sometimes fictional

                                 me.

                            - Elizabeth Carlson, Source: Teaching With Fire