Poem in Your Pocket Day #3

If you’ve never carried a poem in your pocket before, now is a good time to start.

April 26th is National Poem in Your Pocket Day. It’s pretty self-explanatory--you copy down a poem and carry it in your pocket all day. Simple, right?

I’ve asked people in and around the Piper Center (the headquarters for HFR) to share the poems they plan on carrying on PIYPD, and the reasoning behind their choice. So for the next few weeks, we’ll take a look at the poems staff, interns, MFA students and general float-arounders hold close.

Today's poem is from John-Michael Bloomquist, a poet in the MFA program at ASU.

He chose "Lacrima Christi" by Hart Crane, and says: "I read this poem two years ago and didn't know what it meant but knew it contained a powerful essence. I typed it out and stapled to my kitchen cabinet in my old place, glancing at it as I made dinner. Two years later, after studying Greek mythology and eroticism, I came across the poem again in a 1936 copy of White Buildings that I got for a ridiculous deal; I was amazed by Crane's revisionist myth embedded by every word in the poem. He showed me that lyricism, with a great deal of research on each word, creates in impenetrable and inescapable narrative. It is my favorite poem and I look forward to a lifetime of reading it."

Hear poet Clayton Eshleman reading "Lacrima Christi" by Hart Crane at One Pause Poetry's website.