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It’s a busy time in the poetry world, with April being National Poetry Month, Shakespeare’s birthday (maybe) and death day (for sure) observed on April 23, and National Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 26. To celebrate the last of these, here are a few poems you might want to keep in your pocket for inspiration this Thursday…

Emily Dickinson was many things: great poet, a social recluse, lover of white dresses. One thing Emily Dickinson was not was a rabid Christmas shopper. But what if she was? What if holiday shopping was her main inspiration for her poems? Then they would probably read like this.

Who has time to read a whole novel these days? With expediency in mind, here are classic works of literature condensed to that most indispensable of poetic forms, the limerick.

Les Miserables

Val Jean, who stole a baguette

Leaves prison without paying his debt

During the French Revolution

He finds a solution:

Be a good dad to his daughter, Cosette

Oliver Twist

Oliver was a boy who was born poor

And caused a row when he asked for more

He falls in with thieves,

Escapes his half-brother’s misdeeds

And declines to settle the score

The Handmaid’s Tale

Offred had her rights removed

By a regime that just wanted her brood

But the Mayday resistance

Offers questionable assistance

And despite qualms, Offred vamoosed

Beloved

Sethe and Denver answer a ghost’s call

And let her have the run of the hall

But as the ghost hangs around

Denver calls in the town

Because slavery leaves scars on us all

The Great Gatsby

Gatsby has himself a scheme

To re-seduce the girl of his dreams

But a billboard with eyes

Watches all of his lies

And he ends up floating downstream

Ulysses

Both Dedalus and Bloom profess

That philosophy is anyone’s guess

They pad around Dublin

Both pub-out and pub-in

But it all hinges on Molly’s “Yes”

Pride & Prejudice

Liz had a poor opinion of Darcy

Because he did not like to party

But as she got to know him

Her love began to grow in

Though she told him off for being a smarty!

Today is the day the music died. On February 3rd, 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed in a plane crash.

And here's a spin on the classic song—Quirk author Erik Didriksen's sonnet version of "American Pie" by Don McLean. True skill. 

Find more of Erik's Shakepearean spins in his book Pop Sonnets and over on popsonnets.com.

Celebrating the Bard this week, here's Erik Didriksen, author of Pop Sonnets, with a sonnet inspired by Cole Porter!

April is National Poetry Month, so if you’re looking for some fantastic up and coming poetic voices to bring into your life, now's the time to do it! If you are not familiar with slam poetry, or spoken word poetry, it is a fairly new performance-based style of poetry in which authors read their work aloud to an audience (sometimes at “poetry slams,” or competitions), incorporating artistic elements of rhythm, pace, volume, etc. Slam poetry’s flexibility and emphatic delivery style tends to invite young poets, as well as the opportunity to focus on social justice and other issues that can be otherwise hard to talk about.

Here are five great slam poets on the scene that everyone should be watching/listening to: