Tweetspeak Poetry

Spending Take Your Poet to Work Day In and Out of Pocket

By 11 Comments

Crayons for Take Your Poet to Work Day
We celebrated the 5th annual Take Your Poet to Work Day this week. For the first time since this smart-fun event began, I missed the whole thing. I spent the day holed up in a conference room for nearly 8 hours, even missing my lunch. Though I was out of pocket, my poet was not. I had Neruda slipped into my inside jacket pocket for luck, and together we took in the poetry of the mediation process, tracking the rhyme and meter of incremental concessions. The process peaked and bottomed out by turns, certain lines repeating in the stanzas of the other four conference rooms just like my own, where other parties to the case, just like me, listened to the mediator make his case again and again and weighed the options over and over until we’d exhausted them all.

What I didn’t get to do was watch others celebrate the day in their own ways, with tea and books and all the other ways our poets have celebrated over the years. Instead, I got to take in the fun all at once when it was over, scrolling through the Twitter feed to see where others had been.

Turns out, they’d been to some fun (and interesting) places. Some years, Take Your Poet to Work Day coincides — erm, collides — with other interesting and special days-of-the-year festivities.

But if you’re not into the hot dog, you could maybe find yourself a cool dog like this one, taking his poet for a walk.

Emily found hers. (But she had to start early.)

The Kansas City Public Library all got in on the day with a favorite poet for everyone.

T.S. Eliot was working up the courage for a dip in the pool. Or else he was getting ready to throw the cat in. We’re just not sure.

Imagine if your doorbell rang and you found this crew standing on your front step. (They might be looking for Eliot’s cat.)

For next year’s celebration, my to-do list includes writing a puppet show script starring our favorite poets. These two would definitely be in the cast.

Do poets get bored?

(Or was he just looking forward to his beer?)

It’s always fun to see what the poets are drinking, after all.

You should’ve heard the argument over who got to ride shotgun.

Some poets had to take public transportation.

And for those out walking, all the poets you could ever want.

Take Your Poet to Work Day was the perfect day for Sandra to celebrate her completion of committing Prufrock, memorization of the entire Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. T.S. Eliot was even on hand to cheer her on. (I think he probably gave her the answers, too.)

And look at all this loot she got for her hard work.

Even Batman has a favorite poet.

And Gandhi too?

Is she … watching him? Maybe we should tell her about John’s girl Fanny.

She might catch his eye, though, with those delightful polka dots.

She seems to have settled down now.

Who knew there were also dinosaurs in exile on Neruda’s island?

And we thought Poe was the creepy one.

At the end of my day, I felt a little like the beloved Robert Frost here, though I was trying to find my car in a parking lot when I hadn’t eaten all day. It almost seems like Poe may be lurking in those shadows. (My suggestion: if he jumps out, just throw the chicken at him. Works every time.)

It’s all in a good poetic day’s work. Thanks for sharing your poets with us!

Photo by Randy Heinitz, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post by LW Lindquist.

Will Willingham
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About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. L.L. Barkat says

    So funny. (Well, sorry, not the 8 hours. But you do make it funny in retrospect. 😉 )

    Quite a few favorites here, but I have to say that listening to Sandra’s video filled me with admiration, maybe even a tender pride, for such a wonderful accomplishment… from someone who pretty much started her poetry journey at the Alpenfest with a paper boy named Tom.

    Reply

  2. Donna says

    Lol! I had so much fun seeing your wrap up, here! A good time was had by al…. except for you and that looooooong meeting. 🙂

    Reply

  3. Bethany R. says

    Such an array of fun! I laughed at, “And we thought Poe was the creepy one.” Hopefully you got to eat some extra goodies after that long fast at work.

    Sandra, I’m just amazed. Well done! I love listening to your charming voice recite this lengthy (yes, it is!) poem. It becomes so much more approachable for me.

    Reply

  4. Sandra Heska King says

    I love these wrap-ups! And I wasn’t expecting to see my recitation here, but how timely that I could wrap it up yesterday. I still can’t quite believe I did it at all. Thanks for the dare and all the encouragement. 😀

    Poor Emily…

    Reply

    • Matthew Kreider says

      Wonderful work, Sandra! A poem begins to get real once it gets memorized, I think. I chose to take Joanna Klink to work because I began my own journey of memorization with her poems. Those words keep weaving through me, particularly when I’m walking or bussing. But whenever they come, they they come as Gift.

      Reply

  5. Donna Falcone says

    It’s funny. I’ve never heard the expression out of pocket until I moved to GA. I thought it was a southern expression!

    Reply

  6. Paul Willingham says

    Annual TAKE A POET TO WORK DAY came and went.
    Alas and alack, LW’s long, long work day was spent
    In full- day meetings, so lunch had to be eschewed
    Ergo had no noon veggies to healthfully chew
    And settled for reporting the successful event

    Reply

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