"The Giraffe" -- a poem for my pocket

     I've found the poem I want to carry in my pocket (and in my head) on "Poem in Your Pocket Day" -- coming soon on April 21. It includes at least one number; here it is:

       The Giraffe     by Ron Padgett

       The 2 f's
       in giraffe
       are like
       2 giraffes
       running through
       the word giraffe

       The 2 f's
       run through giraffe
       like 2 giraffes.    

Giraffe -- novel (& prose poem) by May Swenson

Poet and playright May Swenson (1913-89) was born in Utah to Mormon parents and grew up in a home in which Swedish was the primary language. Swenson wrote of the experience of poetry as "based in a craving to get through the curtains of things as they appear, to things as they are, and then into the larger, wilder space of things as they are becoming." Here are the opening stanzas of Swenson's prose poem, "GIRAFFE:  A Novel," from In Other Words:  New Poems (Knopf, 1987).  I think this is FUN -- and hope you also enjoy it.