Coffee, tea or Coleridge?

National Poem in Your Pocket Day is a good day to be a poem elf.  So many pockets to fill, so many poems to share.

Last year I set up my very first take-a-poem box at the post office.  I saved the box to use again, but when I pulled it out of the basement, I understood why a certain person who lives with me often complains I hoard junk.  The display was sad:  lopsided, stained with copper-colored splotches of unknown origin, and housing a few dead potato bugs. So I made a new one and placed it in my new favorite writing spot, Great Lakes Coffee.  Great Lakes Coffee is a Michigan chain that lives up to its name.  Everything about this place is indeed great—the teas, the service, the staff, the atmosphere, the décor, and from what I hear from other customers, the coffee.

I didn’t take pictures of all the poems I put in the box.  There were too many, including poems by James Tate, Robert Frost, Ruth Stone, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, W.S. Merwin, Yusef Komunyakaa, Eavan Boland, and my Scottish friend Angus Martin, among others. If you live in the area, stop by Great Lakes Coffee today and pick up a poem.  Or link here to find poems, suggestions, videos, and for those anxious souls who really need it, detailed instructions on how to put a Poem in Your Pocket.

Many thanks to the folks at GLC for displaying my box.