Portable Poetry! It’s Poem in Your Pocket Day!

The American Academy of Poets has picked up on New York City’s 6-year-old tradition for National Poetry Month this year and is urging everyone to participate in the first national Poem in Your Pocket Day today — April 17. “The idea is simple: select a poem you love... then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends.” They’ve even put together a collection of pocket-sized poems for you to download, print and take with you. So don’t leave home without your poem today!

And AAP has taken the next step to make sure you have portable poems at your fingertips — in your cell phone — any time you want them. Their new mobile poetry archive has all the poems, poet bios and essays from the big AAP Web site: “Formatted for effortless access on most mobile devices, the poems can be browsed by occasion, theme, author, title, or form, and searched easily by keyword.” Wow! AAP claims to be “the first arts organization to offer mobile content” — and whether or not poetry is first in this, it’s clear that poems want to be portable and they belong on our cell phones. We applaud the Academy’s initiative, and we’re off to gather poems on the Blackberry right now!