Friday, April 18, 2014

POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY!

Seems like a little thing, but it's kind of awesome and enormous. All you have to is carry a poem in your pocket today and, maybe, if you can find a way, share it with someone (even if it's just your dog).

You don't even need to find a poem because the Academy of American Poets has an app for that (or a widget or something--I don't know exactly what it is but it's easy enough for even me). Here it is:


Here's the poem I'll be pocketing. It's one of my all-time favorites:

When I Heard the Learned Astronomer
  by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
   and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
   much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

No comments: