# Poem In Your Pocket 2016 Discussion!



## am_hammy (Apr 14, 2016)

Today is the day for our open discussion for* Poem In Your Pocket Day* *2016*!

What is poem in your pocket day? Well I'm glad you asked. Basically it's one day in the month of April where you pick your favorite poem, keep it in your pocket, and choose someone random or someone you know and share it with them. Any one can do it, so we've decided to bring it to WF with our own online version.

Starting now,* April 14th**,* we will be sharing and talking about our favorite poems until the *20th*. When the big day arrives, the *21st*, each of us will then choose three people to share our favorite poems with on the forum. 

During this discussion, please be sure to *post links to this discussion thread* from wherever you got your poem from and if you are choosing a poem that requires permissions from the writer, please do so before posting in this thread.

Okay! Lets get this discussion started. I will kick things off with one of my favorites from Shakespeare's collection of sonnets with Sonnet XXX. The Sonnet is one my favorite forms of poetry and this poem strikes home with it's bittersweet air of remembrance and how painful thinking of your past can be but thoughts of that one special person can make those woes go away.

Sonnet XXX

*"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow, 
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, 
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: 
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
Which I new pay as if not paid before. 
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end"

*http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/30.html

*
Which poem will you share and why do you like it?*


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## Aquarius (Apr 14, 2016)

Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
 To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!
 Would not we shatter it to bits - and then
 Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

Omar Khayyam

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rubaiyat-of-omar-khayyam/


I don't think there is any need to explain why I love this poem. It speaks for itself.

* * *
​


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## aj47 (Apr 14, 2016)

My friend Otts (Alex Ottenstein) kindly gave me permission to share one of my favorite poems.  The artistry and technique astonish me, even though the subject is not my genre and I don't "get" all of it.


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## Aquarius (Apr 15, 2016)

astroannie said:


> The artistry and technique astonish me, even though the subject is not my genre and I don't "get" all of it.



I too like the artistry and technique, although I am not very keen on the poem itself.


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## am_hammy (Apr 18, 2016)

Lovely choices for both of you!


Any other takers? Share your favorite poem and tell us why!


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## PrinzeCharming (Apr 18, 2016)

Yeah, sorry for the delay, I was definitely busy last week to catch this thread. Hughes' _Mother to Son_ is very inspirational. Just breathe, keep climbin' and never look back. Don't ever feel entitled to go another direction or request a nicer path. Take it. Work with it. Life is not a matter of which staircase you climb, but _how _you climb it. Take this poem to a writing perspective. Treat writer's block as a staircase. If it takes one step (one word) at a time, just do it. You will be much closer to the top. In the end, always remember - Mother knows best. 


*Mother to Son
*Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.


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## Darkkin (Apr 18, 2016)

*Invitation, a Journey*

_Invitation

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you are a pretender come sit by my fire.
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!
_

- Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

​
I love nonsense, revel in it on a level few can fathom.  A place where the only limit is one's own imagination.  I accepted an invitation and have found some rather singular things.  So now I pass it on an _Invitation_.  Will you accept?


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## aj47 (Apr 19, 2016)

Can we only share one?


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## am_hammy (Apr 19, 2016)

You can share another if you'd like. Why not? =)


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## aj47 (Apr 20, 2016)

*If* - Poem by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!


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## Aquarius (Apr 20, 2016)

Come, gentle night,
Come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo. And, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish Sun.

And

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep.
The more I give to thee,
The more I have, 
For both are infinite.

Both from Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare

* * *
​


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## Phil Istine (Apr 20, 2016)

astroannie said:


> *If* - Poem by Rudyard Kipling
> 
> If you can keep your head when all about you ...



Definitely one of my all time favourites.
I actually had this one hanging on the back of my toilet door


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## am_hammy (Apr 20, 2016)

Excellent choices once again. Thanks everyone for sharing!

only two more days until the big day where we pick our three people to share the poems with on the forum!


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## PiP (Apr 21, 2016)

There are so many great poems to choose from that I am spoiled for choice. I was going to choose a poem by Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night. I'm sure you all know



> Do not go gentle into that good night,
> Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
> Rage, rage against the dying of the light




But as it is *a* poem rather than poem*s* I am going to chose something humorous to keep me smiling throughout the day. It's a poem by Pam Ayres.

[video=youtube_share;XhdaYCPvnKM]https://youtu.be/XhdaYCPvnKM[/video]


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## Aquarius (Apr 21, 2016)

PiP said:


> Do not go gentle into that good night. . .



Sorry PiP. Contrary to what Dylan Thomas thought of the matter, I do indeed hope to go gently when I say good bye to this world and hello to our other world, and that in the not too distant future.


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## am_hammy (Apr 21, 2016)

Today is the day! Pick three people to share your poem with and spread the poetry goodness!


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## aj47 (Apr 21, 2016)

I PMed a few folks.  The poem I PMed them is one I'm allowed to share in PM, but not sure about on the forum proper.


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