In celebration of National Poetry Month, the entire campus community is invited to join the Campus Poetry Project sponsored by the English, Foreign Languages and English as a Second Language Department.
Throughout April, be on the lookout for poetry postings in the Campus Chronicle and on digital monitors across campus, as well as our cardboard poet cutouts and poetry lawn signs. Take a selfie with your favorite poet!
This year, the American Academy of Poets is highlighting this verse: “we were all made for something” (Ada Limon). That is why we decided to focus on poems about work this year. We’ll include songs and lyrics about work, too! (Below is the official 2023 National Poetry Month poster from the American Academy of Poets.)
April 27 is Poem in Your Pocket Day. It was initiated in April 2002 by the Office of the Mayor in New York City, in partnership with the city’s Departments of Cultural Affairs and Education. In 2008, the Academy of American Poets took the initiative to all 50 United States, encouraging individuals around the country to participate. In 2016, the League of Canadian Poets extended Poem in Your Pocket Day to Canada. Check out ways to participate at https://poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day. Today’s poem was highlighted for Poem in Your Pocket Day by the American Academy of Poets.
Today’s Poem
“The Raincoat”
by Ada Limón
When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.
From The Carrying (Milkweed Editions, 2018) by Ada Limón. Copyright © 2018 by Ada Limón. Used with the permission of Milkweed Editions; milkweed.org.
Ada Limón is the author of “The Carrying” (Milkweed Editions, 2018) and “Bright Dead Things “(Milkweed Editions, 2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award.