Is that a poem in your pocket or are you just...umm... groping for metaphors?

Thursday is National Poem In Your Pocket Day, where you are encouraged to take a poem with you and share it with friends or strangers, whenever you get the chance.

I thought it would be a good excuse to send my kids off to school, armed with poems.

So my son will be going into his 7th grade class (which just so happens to be doing AIMS tests all week), with this Charles Jensen poem from his latest chapbook, "The Nanopedia Quick-Reference Pocket Lexicon of Contemporary American Culture"

Standardized Test

A pupil is something which grows larger the

more darkness you put inside it.

And my daughter will be showing & telling this Hal Sirowitz poem to her 4th grade:

No More Birthdays



Don't swing the umbrella in the store,
Mother said.  There are all these glass jars
of spaghetti sauce above your head
that can fall on you, and you can die.
Then you won't be able to go to tonight's party,
or go to the bowling alley tomorrow.
And instead of celebrating your birthday
with soda and cake, we'll have
anniversaries of your death with tea
and crackers.  And your father and I won't
be able to eat spaghetti anymore, because
the marinara sauce will remind us of you.

If anyone else is carrying around a poem tomorrow, I would love to hear about it.
Or at least hear which poems you've chosen.