Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Poem-in-your-Pocket Day -- April 29, 2022

      The following stanza by  award-winning children's author,  Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, (1914-2000), has led to an annual celebration in US schools of "Poem-in-your-Pocket" Day:

          Keep a poem in your pocket 
          and a picture in your head     
          and you'll never feel lonely
          at night when you're in bed.  

     The poetry that is in my my pocket is the opening stanza of "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963).   As this previous posting indicates, Roethke's poem has not always been a favorite, but now -- as I stumble toward the later years of my life -- I cherish what it awakens in me and its first stanza (offered below) belongs in my pocket!

         I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
         I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
         I learn by going where I have to go.

  Roethke's entire poem, with comments, is found here in this 2018 blog posting. And this link leads to a response to "The Waking" that I wrote-- entitled "Running."


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