Day 25: Poetry Online

Celebrating National Poetry Month by highlighting 30 days of literary publishers who produce poetry you can listen to, watch, or read, in 5 minutes or less.

My friend Tracy is one of those people who leave colorful footprints on your heart with every encounter. She’s kind and curious. A retired teacher who loves to keep discovering new things.

One of our favorite games is trying to learn the names of wildflowers or critters we encounter on our frequent hikes, then laughing at ourselves when a month or so later we’ve entirely forgotten. So we relearn, rename, repeat.

For Tracy, and for all you dear readers who appreciate exquisite poems in repetition: printed words plus audio, plus written descriptions of images, Poetry Online is a reading destination you must visit.

From Poetry Online “About” page:

OUR MISSION

Poetry Online, also known as poetry.onl, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to publishing poetry in accessible formats. Through our web journal and chapbooks, we feature poetry in written, visual, and time-based forms, with audio, plain text, and captioning whenever possible. Our mission is to expand the poetry space to better serve disabled poets, readers, and viewers.

Another thing I love about Tracy is how she will strike up conversations with strangers. So for her I chose the poem “At Checkout” by Greg Oaks. It opens this way:

AT CHECKOUT

My mother touches shoulders

in public, stopping strangers in

aisles to talk about their shirts, kids,

the bacon in their basket.

You can read the entire poem and listen to Greg Oaks read it here.

May you blessed by a stranger today. Or, may you connect with someone you don’t know. Say “hi.” Smile. Compliment someone’s shoes or shirt. Be like an 86-year-old mom in the market.