#PocketPoems: NYPL's Celebration of National Poetry Month
To celebrate National Poetry Month, The New York Public Library has collected poetry from over 30 contemporary poets and staff members, with some writing especially for this project. Throughout the month, the poems will be shared online, across the Library’s social media channels, and in our branches—and presented below!
Download all of this year's #PocketPoems.
April 30: untitled by Raúl Hernández
Escribes un hayku
en una hoja de cuaderno.
Arrancas la hoja
la doblas y la doblas.
Por la ventana
se va el hayku
a las estrellas
hecho avioncito.
….
You write a haiku
on a sheet from a notebook.
You tear it out
and fold it and fold it.
Out the window
the haiku heads
for the stars
made into a little airplane.
Check out Raúl Hernández's work in the Library and online.
April 29: 'NO GHOST THO'' by Katy Chrisler
Pull a black pyramid
from your mouth. Spit-glistened
affair of sphere swallow
not merely a theory of beauty.
Province knows the boundary
of what is fearful. The object
called forth, more to say.
Lead back to something.
Belong here with me among
the smallest of means.
Check out Katy Chrisler's work online.
April 28: 'Monday, May 15, Sappho, WA—' by Sarah Dowling
a logging chapter is closed. Those
country maidens were good riders,
flowers blooming in an old bathtub,
cows grazing in an orchard. Their
garments neat as they should be. A
-cross the dirt road, peasant-girls
on the front porch—oh,
anyone would want to live
in the fenced area nearby. Anyone
would want a dress around her feet.
Check out Sarah Dowling's work in the Library, online, and on Twitter.
April 27: 'Shipwrecked' by Grace Yamada
I feel no wonder
Looking down on my ship run aground
Decks and helm deserted
By the rage that filled the sails and rowed the oars
I can only wander along this salt coast
Collecting and discarding the memories I will need
As I continue on without them
Check out Grace Yamada's work at the Library.
April 26: untiltled by Adrienne Raphel
Higgledy piggledy,
Ernest H. Shackleton
Couldn’t man up for the Polar Bear Swim.
No bears in the South Pole, he
Geo-pedantically
Whined but he knew he was
Being a wimp.
Check out Adrienne Raphel's work in the Library, online, and on Twitter.
April 25: 'You' by Katrina Ruiz
are rogue balloon caught in revolving ceiling fan
speeding car in the emergency lane
the dog who wanders too far without a leash.
I try to ground you like chancletas do beach blankets
and hand holds on rollercoasters.
But we’re the prizes discarded in the cereal box
socks lost in every wash
and the farmer’s market haul
we swear we’ll eat before it goes bad.
April 24: 'Beginning with a Horse' by Alan Felsenthal
A horse has six legs
two belong to a man
who might be Pluto
disguised as the devil
abducting a unicorn
whose horn was used
to purify a spring
that whetted the infinite
now behind us
Check out Alan Felsenthal's work in the Library, online, and on Twitter.
April 23: 'Molecule' by Cole Heinowitz
Each molecule of water, bound by a limelit orgy in the elevator before internship to some cubic unit of sea reef requiting birth, causes an eddy of causality where sedimented rings appear as vertical chutes in the heat of the moment, leading straight from surface to core, obfuscating the sweatshop of historical accretions madly revolving to support the spectacle drinking from a cup, seeing “no manner of similitude.”
Check out Cole Heinowitz's work online.
April 22: 'Parable of Joan Mitchell' by Daniel Poppick
Blue jail, teal jail, green jail, ochre jail, aqua jail, yellow jail, mustard jail, red jail, rose jail, magenta jail, platinum jail, charcoal jail, chartreuse jail, puce jail, pink jail, lilac jail, sunset jail, sail jail, soil jail, salmon jail, noise jail, blood clot jail, stair jail, rust jail, custard jail, snail shell jail, drip jail, grass jail, rhyme jail, dice jail, worm jail, circle jail, dot jail, clear jail, chrome jail, mail jail, air jail.
Check out Daniel Poppick's work online .
April 21: 'What Parks Are For' by John Burns
In a field, two Labrador retrievers
roll together, tongues out.
under an orange sky.
What have I lost that I cannot remember?
I think it is the color of that sky
and what the two dogs were trying to say with their eyes.
I bark like a cloud.
April 20: 'I Give You My Heart' by Ricardo Alberto Maldonado
I find myself on my feet with fifteen leaves. Everything carries
its own light on the walls.
I woke up to slaughter—my heart opening to cemeteries of moon,
to parasites, to drizzle, the mud crowning the undergrowth
with immense sadness. I knew death when I dressed in my uniform.
I found the index of solitude: my country in legal
jargon, its piety, its fiction— Yes. It loves me, really.
I give my blood as the blood of all fish.
Check out Ricardo Alberto Maldonado's work online and on Twitter.
April 19: 'Unconditional' by Dora Malech
If this black willow is calligraphy
then this white sky’s an invitation
and requests the honor of your presence.
And you—will you attend?
Check out Dora Malech's work in the Library, online, and on Twitter.
April 18: 'Kintsugi' by Sally Wen Mao
Gold in the cracks. Thank god the vessel was broken. Why did I believe that repair would never mend it back to its beauty? Over the years, mending has become a monotony. Never mind the slow burn of a porcelain birth—kiln of a million live embers. Repair this ewer with precious metals, let its fractures show. Soak the shattered thing overnight in whole milk. Morning, wait for its whole.
Apply adhesive—
pinch of gold, silver of ash.
She was broken, thank
god.
April 18: 'When I say I’m Spanish, I mean' by Alysia Vargas
Yo soy Puertorriqueña through blood.
Culture runs through my body, stops
at my mind and my tongue speaks the language
foreign to my ancestors. Native tongue pronounces
a mixture of failure and American. I rarely speak
Spanish but I feel it in my mothers
hands when she tames my curls. When I walk
into her sofrito scented kitchen and open arms.
Saint candles burning the day away, my ancestors
humming in my blood.
April 18: 'Language' by Carla Faesler
Nobody
will believe
I reached so far
on this old vehicle
of thought
April 18: from 'The Goodbyes' by Emily Sieu Liebowitz
Can I become closer to a portrait in my nature?
Less like something overheard in town,
but still a way to refer to oneself. Not
me or you, we or they but more
like Sylvia’s dogwood is blooming &
Susie’s are in blossom too.
April 18: [Every bare tree] by Robin Myers
Every bare tree
is a silent
chorus of itself.
April 18: 'world around the' by Caleb Klaces
The eye does not see itself as a place to live.
The cruise ship parties on a bellyful of jellyfish.
Painted stars hold the cracked ceiling together.
Light falls and the sea is supportive.
My debt shoves me aside and grins at the camera.
When a number forgets where it started, it speculates.
Coins multiply in the frozen hearts of Bluefin tuna.
This old coin cannot bear its own head.
April 18: 'Plea' by Caitlin Roach
How when a body dies it becomes the body. No mind
to all the mouths who named it, who knew it in quiet, who call for it
now, unanswered. But know it: bear the cells’ leaking out and pooling
where they’re pulled to, bluebottles lapping at these final outputs, fur
around their mouths bloodied like winged wolves. Note them
as markers, makers beyond you. Watch the body age beyond itself, wage
against itself, overwintered. Count the cracks of cygnets hatching
in June. Let the prayer come out your mouth, just let it. The light
will regain its blueness, I know it.
* originally published in The Manchester Review
Check out Caitlin Roach's work in the Library and online.
April 17: 'Mango Mañanas' by María José Maldonado
I reached up and picked a
mango from my
grandmother’s tree
She cut it into slices added
lime, salt and alguashte
That day we ate our native fruit under the tropical
Salvadoran sun while a green little lizard looked up at
our delicious fun.
Check out María José Maldonado's work in the Library.
April 16: 'Violin' by Ian Brand
A violin filling with blue dusk
or else your voice
is a grotto inside a waterfall,
a house with four walls of rain
outside of which the birds
are patches of song
scissored
piecemeal
from the light.
Check out Ian Brand's work in the Library and online.
April 15: '4ever 2morrow' by Mario Santana
I live in a world of my own
There's no place like home
Somewhere that makes you
Want to write a poem
Just imagine a nation
Where you can use your imagination
As a passport to the future
Using creation to get away like vacation
April 14: 'Oda a Pura Belpré' by María Isabel Molestina Triviño
Ay dulce Pura, tu nombre lo dice todo Siempre íntegra cual
alma cálida en un mes de verano Tus dotes de contar y
cantar se hacen palpables por doquier Con voz suave y sutil
Ay dulce Pura, tú que derrochas paz por donde quiera que vas
Brindando alegría a chicos y grandes Con tus cuentos de
antaño Y tu folklore colosal
Ay dulce Pura, a pesar de no estar mas aquí Tu espíritu brilla
con luz sinigual Y tu legado continúa muy presente Tocando a
toda la gente con tus espléndidos cuentos de siempre
Check out María Isabel Molestina Triviño's work on Instagram.
April 13: 'firefighter' by Al Valentín
I come from a long line of women who believed
that it's better to be on fire than to be a fool
so I'm teaching myself to cry again
hoping that these embers will be extinguished
hoping that at least one of us
can know the joy of water
April 12: 'Helia' by Rhonda Evans
She eases us her brilliance upon us.
Slow. Careful.
Waking us with gentle hues that rock the soul like grandma’s hands.
The brilliance of mid-day is a steady pulse.
She is proud of herself at the end of the day.
To rest she cloaks herself in the color of Queens.
First lilac. Then lavender. Then she drinks the wine of sleep.
Check out Rhonda Evans' work at NYPL and on Twitter.
April 11: 'Boys Accidentally Set Sail While Painting Yacht' by Jared Hayley
A logbook of dirty Mad Libs.
Hooks without bait. Shucked skin.
They vow never to speak of what happens,
then nothing worth telling happens.
The moment of day when sky is dark
and sea is light reminds each of his other.
Check out Jared Hayley on Twitter.
April 10: 'Soft' by Jackie York
I have lost soft things
suddenly turned stiff
wept a wall of stone into my skin—
but your yellow eyes can already see through it
your moody meow already pricks up my ears
your heft has made a home on my hip;
I can’t help but let you knead me
paw your way in
April 9: Untitled by Mary Katherine Kinniburgh
The cosmos:
a fluttering
colorful bird
that each night, we take out
to play on our fingers
as we sift through books
who eats small seeds
that look like stars
Check out Mary Katherine Kinniburgh's work online and on Twitter.
April 8: 'My Attendant' by Jessica Laser
He saved the seeds
From an orange I ate.
I like it when he does
This but don’t
Need these seeds.
“Good. I’ll throw them.”
As I wrest the Ziploc
From his hand
I peer into the eyes
Of my attendant.
I see there the strings
I have made taut,
That they are made
Of my own muscles.
I see them waiting
To be plucked by touch.
Check out Jessica Laser's work online.
April 7: "Hello There Pretty Space' by Caroline Reichardt
mysterious planet slime home
has grumpy past
power the rocket ship!
hello there pretty space
Check out Caroline Reichardt's work online.
April 6: 'The Moon Lets Go' by Nancy Reddy
Years and years from now the earth will gain
another hour in its day, but I’ll be dead then,
and everyone I love will be gone, too. At daycare dropoff,
my boys wave to me but kiss – mwah! mwah! – each other
through the pre-K room’s goodbye window,
launching each smooch with a sticky hand and smacking it
against the glass. The moon is small and bound to us by gravity
that’s slowly loosening its grip. I’d wanted them to love each other like this.Check out Nancy Reddy's work in the Library and online.
April 5: 'Systemic Risk' by Daniel Borzutzky
You can analyze systemic risk according to how many bodies live or die
If the system fails the broken bodies become invisible and/or hyper-visible
The people are being born and dying
They are enacting the invisibility of the security system through the exhibition of their
naked bodies
I eat corrupted data to keep my skin from becoming transparent
I would rather be a defect of culture than a defect of data or character
What is not observed gets more visible in relation to the strength of the surveillance
It’s better to deprive a few million people of food than to pull the plug on the global
economy
If the consumers don’t buy your product then teach them the meaning of love
Check out Daniel Borzutzky's work in the Library and online.
April 4: 'Sun-Stuccos Caught Nearby In the Least' by Catherine Blauvelt
The image on my screen defeats the window
in front of me; a shadow behind the moon;
creation without prior text; LOVE as my first person.
Say one fruit for another fruit: Love, Apple, Ruth.
To be while continuing a little dying breeze over
and over again; till I go up, I am a case.
Check out Catherine Blauvelt's work in the Library, online, and on the NYPL staff blog.
April 3: 'Heretofore Unuttered' by Nicole Sealey
As if god, despite his compulsions, were decent
and hadn’t the tendency to throw off
all appearance of decorum, here I am
admiring this single violet orchid.
How lucky am I to go unnoticed
or so I imagine, when, at this writing,
there is a red-tailed hawk, somewhere,
tracking the soft shrills of newborn songbirds—?
Check out Nicole Sealey's work in the Library, online, and on Twitter.
April 2: 'Connections' by Jason Baumann
All of my trains
arrive seconds too
late to catch your
closing doors.
Check out Jason Baumann's work in the Library and online.
April 1: 'A Truth That Tells You' by Maggie Smith
I wish for you a small, portable truth you can take
anywhere—no foreign adaptors needed,
no translation required and nothing lost in it.
Once, looking at a map, my daughter said,A river is a line the world drew for us. I wish for you
a truth that stays true across any line drawn
by the world or its people, a truth that tells you
wherever you arrive, you are welcome.
Check out Maggie Smith's work in the Library, online, and on Twitter.
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For all of NYPL's National Poetry Month festivities, check out nypl.org/poetry.
And for poetry-related programming at your local branch, visit our National Poetry Month Events page. Events include poetry-writing workshops, poetry discussions, and read-ins.