'A Small, Portable Truth': NYPL's Poem in Your Pocket Day 2019
I wish for you a small, portable truth you can take
anywhere—no foreign adaptors needed,
no translation required and nothing lost in it.
--the first stanza of Maggie Smith's poem for PiYP Day 2019
We're inviting patrons—in our branches all over the city and anywhere you are online—to take a breath, take a break from the news, and take a poem.
In celebration of Poem in Your Pocket Day, The New York Public Library asked more than 30 contemporary poets to create or select poems just for us. Today, these poems are printed and available in all 88 branches, plus NYPL's research library and several prisons in our system.
They're also available for you, online, right now! Read them online, download them, and check them out across our Library's social media channels.
On the ground, our library staff members are reporting record numbers of poem enthusaists! They're in branches all over the city, and in just one room at our 42nd Street location, more than a thousand poems were distributed in a matter of hours.
Examples of our #PocketPoems displays:
Poem in Your Pocket Day with Sharon at Columbus Library!
Colorful poems at Tremont.
Insta-worthy, fashion-forward Muhlenberg.
Van Cortlandt's all ages display.
Poems in the iconic 42nd St. Library.
To download all our poems, print them, and distribute them yourself, check out the PDF online!
To see displays from around NYPL, check out our Facebook album:
For poetry-related programming at your local branch, visit our National Poetry Month Events page.