National Keep a Poem in Your Pocket Day

Today is National Keep a Poem in Your Pocket Day, a part of National Poetry month. It was started in 2002 in New York City and has gone national.

To celebrate, I am sharing a favorite poem by a favorite children's author, Jean Little, from her book, Hey World, Here I Am! published in 1986.

Afternoon in March

By Jean Little

I run,

Not to anywhere,

Not away from anybody.

I run just to run,

To make my heart wham,

My eyes blur,

My side pain sharply.

I slow down at last,

Gulping the sweet air,

Almost crying...

I'm crazy.

But there was nobody ahead of me

Down that whole, long, waiting stretch of

sun-bare sidewalk!

Oh, it was like a bird flying,

Like a song,

Like a shout!

I was freedom.

I have loved this book for years and have often used the poems from this little gem with my elementary-aged students and preservice teachers in the past as a means for encouraging personal reading response.

ReadWriteThink is a website created by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Reading Association (IRA) that contains lesson plans developed by teachers to help other teachers, as well as many other professional resources related to literacy. They have a link for celebrating National Keep A Poem In Your Pocket Day with students that includes lessons related to this event and poetry in general for teaching children in grades 1-12.

Poets.org also has a link on it's website to help celebrate this poetic day.