Poem in Your Pocket

First off, a quick explanation for things being so quiet around here lately: I’m working on a redesign of the site. In some ways, nothing major, as I’ll be keeping the same basic visual style, and I’m “just” transforming it from a single-column back to a two-column layout. However, that’s caused me to re-code from the bottom up in order to get everything working the way I want it, which has been keeping me busy over the past few nights.

The new design probably won’t go up until sometime next week at the earliest (this being birthday weekend and all, spending hours in front of the computer is fairly low priority), but it’ll go up as soon as I can manage it.

Today, though, is Poem In Your Pocket day. Originally started by the New York Times and the City of New York, someone on Orkut’s blogger community suggested turning this into a meme.

“The City of New York and The New York Times invite you to join us on April 30, 2004 for Poem in Your Pocket Day… New Yorkers are encouraged to carry a poem in their pocket and share it with friends, family, coworkers and classmates.”

I thought it would be a great idea if bloggers did something similar on April 30th:

To commemorate the end of National Poetry Month, blog about your favorite poem and provide at least one link to other poems and/or a bio of the poet.

Now, admittedly, I’ve never been much of one for poetry. For one reason or another, it’s an art form that has consistently failed to capture my interest much at all. However, there is one poet that I absolutely love, and have quite a few books of poetry (including one wonderful collection of his complete poems): e. e. cummings. Something about his style has always grabbed me, and he’s been the only poet ever to peak my interest.

While it’s difficult for me to narrow down one particular favorite, there are two that consistently pop into my mind when I’m trying to pick a favorite.

This first one I love because it’s so wonderfully un-subtle. Just my style.

she being Brand

-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff i was
careful of her and(having

thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the
clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell)next
minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg.     ing(my

lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightening)just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

                    (it

was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on

the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
brakes Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.

stand-
;Still)

This second one that always sticks in my head is much sweeter, and it’s primarily the last nine lines (starting with “what’s wholly”) that really get to me.

because it’s

Spring
thingS

dare to do people

(& not
the other way

round)because it

’s A
pril

Lives lead their own

persons(in
stead

of everybodyelse’s)but

what’s wholly
marvellous my

Darling

is that you &
i are more than you

& i(be

ca
us

e It’s we)

(Incidentally, trying to translate e. e. cummings’ poetic formatting into workable valid HTML/CSS is not easy to do. Hopefully I managed to pull it off…)

(via Phil)

iTunes: “Lust for Life” by Pop, Iggy from the album Trainspotting (1977, 5:13).