Poem of the Day by Brooks Emery https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd Poems are songs that nobody cares about en-us 2020-08-18 16:42:42 UTC 2020-09-20 17:21:58 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f4dc.png "Introduction to Poetry" - Billy Collins bemery5 https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/685388759 2020-08-18 16:54:54 UTC https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/685388759 Octavia Butler bemery5 https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/696445861 Are you Earthseed?
Do you believe?
Belief will not save you.
Only actions
Guided and shaped
By belief and knowledge
Will save you.
Belief
Initiates and guides action —
Or it does nothing.]]> 2020-08-25 03:18:48 UTC https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/696445861 "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" - Emily Dickinson bemery5 https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/700345237 I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one's name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!]]> 2020-08-26 16:12:44 UTC https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/700345237 "Sidekicks" - Ronald Koertge bemery5 https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/707464555 2020-08-30 19:41:07 UTC https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/707464555 "The Summer I Was Sixteen" - Geraldine Connolly bemery5 https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/711896757 The turquoise pool rose up to meet us,
its slide a silver afterthought down which
we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles.
We did not exist beyond the gaze of a boy.
Shaking water off our limbs, we lifted
up from ladder rungs across the fern-cool
lip of rim. Afternoon. Oiled and sated,
we sunbathed, rose and paraded the concrete,
danced to the low beat of "Duke of Earl".
Past cherry colas, hot-dogs, Dreamsicles,
we came to the counter where bees staggered
into root beer cups and drowned. We gobbled
cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses,
shared on benches beneath summer shadows.
Cherry. Elm. Sycamore. We spread our chenille
blankets across grass, pressed radios to our ears,
mouthing the old words, then loosened
thin bikini straps and rubbed baby oil with iodine
across sunburned shoulders, tossing a glance
through the chain link at an improbable world.

]]> 2020-09-01 14:46:39 UTC https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/711896757 "We Real Cool" - Gwendolyn Brooks bemery5 https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/715534896 The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We   
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We   
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We   
Die soon.
]]> 2020-09-02 16:57:01 UTC https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/715534896 “Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?" - Ron Koertge bemery5 https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/752360186 Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.
It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.
Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.
Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.
Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.
You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."
Then start again.

]]> 2020-09-16 16:43:36 UTC https://padlet.com/bemery5/6dp9qx316g8lsivd/wish/752360186