Poem in your pocket day is on April 18th but because it is the first day of spring break. Instead Tuscarora will be holding it on the 17th. On this day students will select a poem and carry it around in their pocket. They are able to trade poems with other students, teachers and even strangers they see on the street. At the end of the day Mrs. Kowalski, our literacy specialist, will announce a poem and an author, if you have that poem you go down to the office for a prize.

The tradition was only started here a few years ago by Ms. Henry. But it originally started in 2002 by the office of the mayor in New York City. It spread throughout the country in 2008 by the Academy of American Poets. It is even celebrated in Canada!

Here are some poems you can print out if you’d like to participate:

i shall imagine life by Edward Estlin (E E) Cummings

i shall imagine life

is not worth dying if

(and when)roses complain

their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades

itself that every weed’s

a rose roses(you feel

certain)will only smile

Dreams By Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Friendship by Alexander Pushkin

What’s friendship? The hangover’s faction,

What’s friendship? The hangover’s faction,

The gratis talk of outrage,

Exchange by vanity, inaction,

Or bitter shame of patronage.