i thank You God for most this amazing • National Poetry Month

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened) 



 by e e cummings 

courtesy Interesting Literature

The Truth Machine, As Demonstrated by Judge Judy • National Poetry Month

The Truth Machine, As Demonstrated by Judge Judy

She is not a polygraph, does not cuff
the accused to take their vital signs,
display their heart rates, breathing
patterns, systolic and diastolic pressures,

the perspiration a swipe of Secret
can’t control volleying on a monitor
like the radar of a storm no one can
escape, state of emergency that preempts

even this daytime television show
every thirty minutes as required
by station policies. Instead the Truth
Machine uses her senses to gauge

theirs. She feels their bladders fill
and shift like they’re her own, feels them
rage-clench their fists, cross their arms
in defense or defiance. The Truth Machine

sniffs their bacterial sweat from her bench,
through each impermeable screen. She hears
their tongues un-vivify, dry out
like cellophane, their words sticking

to the plastic of their palates. A latter-
day Medusa, she forces them to look
in her eyes—not over there, not down—
and freeze themselves in the lake effect

reflection of their lies, even the ones so
far removed from hue that they are liquid
paper. The Truth Machine is a goddess
sorting out every bit of human mishegoss,

deconstructing the tzimmes, but sometimes,
as deities and devices can, she happens
on a Perseus so practiced in his terrifying
deceptions that he gets off a shot at her head.

by Jen Karetnick
courtesy Jewish Women Amplified

About God & Things • National Poetry Month

About God & Things

              1

i want to have your child

cuz upon losing you

i’ll have more than memory

            more than ache

            more than greatness

i’ll have laughter

i do not mean to be fatalistic

know the limits put on you black man

me, black woman

when you are killed or imprisoned

desert or separate from me

i’ll continue

fill the void of your absence with

love between me and ours

gods

              2

you love me

in your eyes. don’t say it loud

pain

america will never let you

              3

you’re home. it’s a surprise

you’ve made it thru another day

one more night in your arms

to fuck

merge our bodies merge

give

wealth/freedom

congress cannot legislate away

              4

eyes wide as suns inquire

where’s daddy?

he’s gone away

i love my daddy

i smile

he’s a good maan

eyes wide as suns

burn my hand with a kiss

go outside to play in the streets

god

what god is about

by Wanda Coleman

from Imagoes (Black Sparrow Press)

courtesy Poetry Foundation

Poem in Your Pocket Day • National Poetry Month

Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day! 

Print this poem to share with friends and family, and keep a copy of it in your pocket. Thanks to the Academy of American Poets for sharing their poem with us, and visit the website for others to read and share.



Making History 

Blue and White Orlon Snowflake Sweater, Blue Snowpants, Red Galoshes 
—Smoky Hill AFB, Kansas, 1955 

Somebody took a picture of a class 
standing in line to get polio shots, 
and published it in the Weekly Reader. 
We stood like that today. And it did hurt. 
Mrs. Liebel said we were Making History, 
but all I did was sqwunch up my eyes and wince. 
Making History takes more than standing in line 
believing little white lies about pain. 
Mama says First Negroes are History: 
First Negro Telephone Operator, 
First Negro Opera Singer At The Met, 
First Negro Pilots, First Supreme Court Judge. 
That lady in Montgomery just became a First 
by sqwunching up her eyes and sitting there.

by Marilyn Nelson

courtesy poets.org

I'll Remember You As You Were, Not As What You'll Become • National Poetry Month

I'll Remember You As You Were, Not As What You'll Become

If you are fearful, America,
I can tell you I am too. I worry
about my body—the way, lately,
it marches itself over curbs and
barriers, lingers in the streets
as a form of resistance.

The streets belong to no one
and everyone and are a guide
for motion, but we are so numerous
there is no pavement left on which to
release our bodies, like a river spilling
over a dam, so instead my body
thrums next to yours in place.

When we stop traffic or hold
hands to form a human chain,
we become a neon OPEN sign
singing into the night miles from
home when the only home left
is memory, your body, my body,
our scars, the dark punctuated
with the dying light of stars.


by Erica Meitner
courtesy Love's Executive Order

First Death • National Poetry Month

First Death

In the cold, cold parlor
my mother laid out Arthur
beneath the chromographs:
Edward, Prince of Wales,
with Princess Alexandra,
and King George with Queen Mary.
Below them on the table
stood a stuffed loon
shot and stuffed by Uncle
Arthur, Arthur's father.

Since Uncle Arthur fired
a bullet into him,
he hadn't said a word.
He kept his own counsel
on his white, frozen lake,
the marble-topped table.
His breast was deep and white,
cold and caressable;
his eyes were red glass,
much to be desired.

"Come," said my mother,
"Come and say good-bye
to your little cousin Arthur."
I was lifted up and given
one lily of the valley
to put in Arthur's hand.
Arthur's coffin was
a little frosted cake,
and the red-eyed loon eyed it
from his white, frozen lake.

Arthur was very small.
He was all white, like a doll
that hadn't been painted yet.
Jack Frost had started to paint him
the way he always painted
the Maple Leaf (Forever).
He had just begun on his hair,
a few red strokes, and then
Jack Frost had dropped the brush
and left him white, forever.

The gracious royal couples
were warm in red and ermine;
their feet were well wrapped up
in the ladies' ermine trains.
They invited Arthur to be
the smallest page at court.
But how could Arthur go,
clutching his tiny lily,
with his eyes shut up so tight
and the roads deep in snow? 

by Elizabeth Bishop
courtesy famouspoetsandpoems.com

Spoken Word Poetry: Mathematics • National Poetry Month

Spoken Word Poetry: Mathematics by Hollie McNish