30 Poets/Day 24 - J. Patrick Lewis and Georgia Heard

It's Day 24 of 30 Poets/30 Days and today, with J. Patrick Lewis and Georgia Heard poems for you, I present theme-by-coincidence: poems that are about poetry! Maybe it's my "day after Shakespeare's birthday" tribute? Or maybe, as before, it's just two great poems shared a year part. You be the judge....

The Poet of the World
by
J. Patrick Lewis

"How ho-ho-hum has the planet become!"
      Cried the Poet of the World.
"I must sonnet the wind, sestina the sea."
      Then he dipped his pen and he swirled

Out a poem where braves become braver, and knaves
      Wander under a vinegar sky,
And a Duchess receives purely innocent thieves
      Who are normally camera-shy.

"The heroes are villains, the geniuses mad!"
      So he spun them a roundelay.
"All the people who live in the Ivory Land
      Would be happier villanelle gray."

Then he thought, "I must metaphor girls in gold
      And simile boys in blue."
He looked up from his Book, and he said, "I forgot,
      Which character are you?"

©2009 J. Patrick Lewis. All rights reserved.
From A Countdown to Summer: A Poem for Every Day of the School Year – Little, Brown, Ethan Long, illustrator
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Ars Poetica

by
Georgia Heard

In September, small poems lay
still and silent inside your hearts.
If you listened carefully,
you might have heard
the quivering of wings.

In January, from the corner
of your eye, you could have spied
a flutter or two –
poems slowly unfolding,
delicate silken wings.

In April, poems began to appear everywhere!
Rainbow wings beating, flapping,
hovering over desks, hanging
from the ceiling, tips of noses, tops of heads.
It was difficult to get any work done!

Now, your butterfly poems
fly free. You fold the memory
into your hearts. Poems --
small butterflies raised, watched,
let loose into the world.

©2010 Georgia Heard. All rights reserved.
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Yesterday we had poems from Nikki Giovanni and Charles R. Smith, Jr. Tomorrow... Julie Larios and George Ella Lyon.

Please click here for more information about this year's edition of 30 Poets/30 Days, including how to follow along.