Poem in Your Pocket Day #4

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 the lovely Karen Sideris, Piper House Finance & Operations Coordinator. This year she will be carrying a poem of her own that has an interesting story. She says:

"I wrote it in Piper Writer's Studio class when challenged to write a poem about loss. My sister had died recently, and I found an old birthday gift she'd sent, a tacky keychain, in a drawer. I started carrying it around, and when it finally broke I felt very sad. The poem was about birthday gifts that stop coming and sisterly dynamics. So, a few weeks later I got a wild hair and submitted the poem after reading a poem from a woman in my home town. I forgot about it, but then randomly, on my birthday, "Tin Heart" was published, a very unexpected gift."

Here's a link to Karen's poem, "Tin Heart."