Poem in Your Pocket Day

The Luther College English department knew the answer. Ever since 1996, when the Academy of American Poets dedicated April as National Poetry Month, Luther’s English faculty have joined with poetry enthusiasts around the nation to celebrate the occasion. Many publishers, schools, booksellers, libraries and poets celebrate by holding poetry readings, festivals, book displays and workshops. For this year’s celebration, the English department set aside April 30 to observe the AAP’s “Poem in Your Pocket Day.”

“Last year we sent out some poems to people, but we’ve never decided to do anything this major,” Professor of English Carol Gilbertson said. “I found a couple hundred poems that were short enough to do this and had them printed out.”

The poems were distributed across campus. Offices in both Main and Dahl Centennial Union had baskets providing short poems for passers-by, as did Preus Library and the Center for Faith and Life.

“I found a bunch of sort of religious poems and put them outside of chapel,” Gilbertson said. “People were just thrilled to get them.”

Other English faculty members also helped to distribute the poems, providing their classes with the pocket-sized poems. English students received five poems each, and were encouraged to share them with friends and teachers throughout the day. It proved to be a difficult task for some.

“I talked with one person who said, ‘I’m going to have to make a copy of this poem before I give it to someone else. I love this poem, I’m not going to let anyone touch this poem,’” Gilbertson said. “English faculty enjoyed it and they told me how much their kids enjoyed it when they handed the poems out.”

But the day was not reserved solely for the poetically inclined. Many non-English majors in the Luther community found Poem in Your Pocket Day refreshing.

“People were just delighted,” Gilbertson said. “I mean, they acted like they were getting gifts. I walked around the Oneota Market when I was having lunch and gave them to people.”

Gilbertson attributes the success of Poem in Your Pocket Day to poetry’s ability to describe human life.

“[Poetry] captures human events in a unique way that gives you a kind of surprise but also a sense of recognition,” Gilbertson said. “It’s like this moment of sort of emotional hush but also ‘Wow! I never thought of it that way, but that’s the way I feel, too.’”