Put a Poem in Your Pocket

This Thursday, Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna invites you to join her for a national event: Poem in Your Pocket Day. On a single day each year during National Poetry Month, thousands across the country carry with them a printed poem—a solid, tangible reminder of “the power and beauty of language,” in Castro Luna’s words.

Don’t have a poem in mind? You’re in luck. Below is a poem written by Michelle Carranza, an eighth grader at Denny International Middle School in Seattle, which Castro Luna translated into English from Spanish. You can print out the pdf here.

Further, you can pick up a beautiful letterpress version of the poem for free at more than 30 bookstores around the state. The poems were hand printed at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts on a 100-year-old Chandler and Price letterpress machine.