Radio Workshop

Poetry in Motion (Transcript)

by Gretchen Wilson

NARR - Poem in Your Pocket Day is an opportunity for New Yorkers to choose one poem, out of all the verse in the world, to serve as the one thing they want everyone else to hear.

At the Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam Avenue today, Andrew Greenberg has copied a poem on an index card. He keeps it tucked inside the pocket of his oxford shirt.

TAPE - The poem is To a Friend whose Work has come to nothing, by Yeats.

(Poem)

I think the reason that I picked the poem today was because of all the events going on and the sense of lies and not lies, and I was kind of attracted to the lines....

NARR - Most of the more than three dozen New Yorkers interviewed today were not familiar with the mayor's initiative. But at Nussbaum and Wu, a deli just up the street, Dennis Cronin doesn't need to write a poem on a card. He's a poet himself and agrees to recite a poem he wrote about adolescence.

TAPE - (Poem)

NARR - Up the street at Bank Street Bookstore, Carl Shaun Stoval hadn't heard of Poem in Your Pocket Day, but quickly runs upstairs to get a copy of his favorite poem.

TAPE - (Poem)



NARR - Frank O'Hara is Carl Shaun's favorite poet.

TAPE - Um, he died, he got hit by a car when he was only 40.

NARR - He says he chose this poem because it's hilarious and light-hearted.

TAPE - The whole idea of, you know, Lana Turner collapsing, and that being possibly the end of civilization.

NARR - Carl Shaun says he's going to share the poem on the ride home on the subway. One of his co-workers, Sarah Culver, has also chosen a poem for today.

TAPE - (Poem)

NARR - Sarah says it is important to incorporate poetry into daily life and applauds the idea of a day for New Yorkers to share poetry with one another.

TAPE - I'm so glad that they're doing this. I think this is so fantastic. That makes me happy.

NARR - And maybe next year, even more New Yorkers will take the opportunity to carry a poem in their pocket.

For Columbia Radio News, I'm Gretchen Wilson.