Bwog editor Mariela Quintana tells you about a holiday you might have missed.

There's been a lot of talk about April being the cruelest month. But what's everyone got against poor old April? Just look at the facts, April's got the best holidays — April Fool's, Earth Day, often Easter, occasionally Passover, always 4/20, and Al Green's birthday's on the 13^th. But April 17^th celebrates the loveliest day of all, Poem in Your Pocket Day.

In honor of National Poetry Month (April), PIYP encourages you, dear Bwog reader, to print out a poem that you enjoy or perhaps that you have even written. As you carry it in your pocket, read your poem to as many or as few people as you so wish — don't be shy, let the inner poet come out!

The holiday is meant to honor not just Erato — our divine Muse of the Lyric Line — but also to promote poetry, literacy an the arts. Today's celebration will culminate with an open mic reading in Byrant Park. And there's even a website, so it's legit!

After the jump, Bwog offers some pocket-friendly poems.

In recent months, Bwog readers have risen from limerick-fearing philistines to haiku-handy aesthetes...and just in time for Poetry Month! And after all, rainy April is the perfect time for indoor sports like contemplation and reflection.

For a gentle night on the town, consider this listing of poetry events. For the heavy-hearted and heavy-handed who can't bear to click the link, a few highlights, after this link:

In the great legacy of great Columbia-affiliated writerly-types, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer announced today that former professor Jean Valentine will be the next New York State Poet and Mary Gordon, Barnard McIntosh Professor of English, will be State Author. Much like an elected congressman, the two will serve two terms and probably sit on the Subcommittee on Rhyming Injustices. Or something.

A Very Topical "Know Your State Poet and Author" Quiz:

Can you match the book jacket photo to the name of the author?

1. Mary Gordon

2. Jean Valentine

Answers after the jump!

In our second poetry post of the day, Bwog is happy to announce that both of this week's personals were offered dates. Pitr's suitor--who would like to remain anonymous--had a particularly charming proposition, reprinted below.

I have written a series of four haikus in order to try and explain why I love Pitr so, and why it should be me.

Spat in my face once.
Not expected, shocked staring.
But, very funny.

Would come to lit hum
Unshod, despite heavy snow.
Nearly reported.

Scooter and knee cap.
When they collide, immense pain
Always in a rush.

CC, Lit hum friend
Now so busy that I must
Ask Bwog to pick me.

In which Bwog correspondent Hannah Goldfield discovers the delights of poetry taken unseriously.

"I have one about bestiality, to the tune of 'Son of a Preacherman', but I don't want to be that bestiality girl!" said a distressed young woman as the elevator door closed and we began our ascent to the James Room on the fourth floor of Barnard Hall Thursday night. She looked up at her male companion, who towered over her. "Can I stand behind you while I read it?"

"Sure," he replied. "But then I'll be that bestiality girl." And thus the tone was set, for this reporter at least, for the Philolexian Society's 21st Annual Alfred Joyce Kilmer Memorial Bad Poetry Contest.

Some background: Alfred Joyce Kilmer, Class of '08 (1908, that is) and member of the Philolexian Society, was a popular poet in the early part of the 20th century. His best-known poem, Trees, can be read here. In 1985, Tom Vinciguerra, C'85, as part of his revival of Philo after roughly 30 years of dormancy, organized the first bad poetry contest in honor of esteemed alum Kilmer. Vinciguerra now serves as "avatar" of Philo and this year sat as a judge alongside Professors Erik Gray of the English Department and Elizabeth Scharffenberger of Classics.

The large room was packed, the dress code called for eveningwear, apparently (I didn't get the memo), and spirits were high as the meeting was called to order. Anyone can participate in the contest, just by showing up—bad poem in hand, pride checked at the door—but be forewarned: if you do show up, either as poet or spectator, you have just earned yourself a lifetime Philo membership, whether you like it or not.

Adam Katz brings us a discussion of the October 17th talk sponsored by the Poetry Society of America on the life and poetry of Pablo Neruda.

The Tribeca Performing Arts Center of the Borough of Manhattan Community College was set off by the blue and green lights to lend it the "wine-dark" appearance of a room being made to look subtly intellectual and portentious. By the 7:00 start, the 250ish seat-theater had contained about 100 people.

Executive Director Lee Briccetti of Poets' House, the evening's sponsor, introduced the speaker Martín Espada, an American-raised, Latino poet, to talk about Pablo Neruda the poet and the poetic influence: "What a pleasure to be here tonight to learn more about what it means to be alive," she said.

The Nobel laureate's birth was 102 years ago; he died after the overthrow of socialist president Salvador Allende by Nixon-backed Pinochet. When he died, fascist soldiers ransacked his home in Santiago before flooding it with a diverted canal and his widow held the wake in the flood. Pinochet left his Isla Negra home untouched, Espada says, "as if out of superstition."

A devout leftist, (as Chilean Consulate in Spain, he watched the Spanish Civil War and witnessed the disappearance first of his Casa de Flores then of his friend Federico García Lorca) Neruda drew inspiration from the ordinary. He wrote ode after ode to common objects and people, and he criticized the apolitical, lovelorn poet he had been before the Spanish Civil War. It is impossible to separate Neruda's politics and poetry.

A Neruda poem and more analysis after the jump.

Living on campus for the entire summer to organize a week of events (a big job, Bwog knows) leads to time spent on some odd activities. Like composing the bulk of an e-mail to OLs in rhyming couplets. Read the full update-in-verse after the jump.

Also, bet you didn't know this before you signed up: it's "strongly recommended" that all OLs complete the first section of alcohol.edu (for out-of-touch upper classmen: that's the online course that tells you how to drink responsibly in college) before they get back on campus in August. Presumably so they can tell freshies how best to use the course for drinking games.

Our source sez:

The New Yorker poetry department receives over 1,000 submissions every week. Each of these is destined to be lovingly rejected by an intern, usually a Columbia grad student, with a carefully handwritten note. It's understandable then that sometimes things get backed up. Really backed up. According to one of the interns, there has been a box of unanswered submissions that have been languishing in the office since 2003. Like a girlfriend who's worn out her welcome, it just sits there, increasingly hard to ignore, but even harder to get rid of.

So it was with much fanfare that the interns were told that they were finally going to throw out the box. But first wouldn't they be so careful as to go through the submissions and remove all the self-addressed stamped envelopes? Why? To save the stamps, of course. Yes, the poetry editor of the New Yorker had her interns cut out each and every 37 cent stamp they could find, even though these stamps on their own were useless without a two cent supplement to compensate for the 2006 cost of postage.

Midway through their task she stopped them. Touched by the hand of reason? Of common human decency? "I just wanted to make sure...neither of you has a blog, right?"

Packed with more old women and men than actual Barnard students, the Women Poets at Barnard's final Spring 2006 lecture was insightful. The Sulzberger Parlor served as the perfect space for the intimate and soft spoken reading of poetry accompanied by free samples of wine among other refreshments.

The Women Poets at Barnard reading series was conceived by Barnard alumnae, and done in conjunction with the Barnard Women Poets Prize. This prize works in partnership with W.W. Norton & Co, giving "women poets with emerging reputations the chance to publish a crucial second book and read at Barnard." Tonight was the "highlight of the year" as Tessa Rumsey and last year's prizewinner, Julie Sheehan, read from their books, The Return Message and Orient Point, respectively. Moreover, this year's winner was announced, Cathy Rich. Her book's title, Dance Dance Revolution was ironic because the Activities Board of Columbia's decision not to recognize Columbia New Poetry and to accept the Dance Dance Revolution Club. (More on that in the Blue and White's May Issue.)

Ever get the feeling that there is a dearth of public art on this campus? Bwog does too, which is why it is happy to share the wonderful geopolitics-themed poetry that it found not that long ago, in a Lehman cubicle. May you be uplifted through art.

Boredatbutler.com has a nifty new feature that lists the top 100 words used on the site.

As expected, raunchy words dominate the list - Bwog is especially fond of the delicious liaison between the latest top 5 words "sex" (1), "butler" (2), "people" (3), "fuck" (4) and "need" (5) - but there are some notable exceptions. For one, we have no idea what a "heavyweiner" (28) is, and why anyone would be playing with "fire" (87) in the library (it must be all the Lolita references...).

In the end, there's not much that one can do with such a list, until you realize that this makes for a very nice Columbia-themed Magnetic Poetry kit. We took a few liberties with tenses and prepositions, but here are our creations:

Everyday the Bwog finds a new reason to love Craigslist. Thanks to reader Anna for tipping us off to the site's Haiku Forum and for sending us a few choice selections.

Fun with Dick and Kitty < lovepoet > 02/08 12:44:5

remember that game
we played - hide the salami...
that was so much fun!
(I crack myself up!)

Posters for the Taiwanese Student Association's spring general meeting (with seductively posed Asian women):

Haiku — 'The Freaky feeling'

She gives me a look

Sweating, I walk towards her

Damn yellow fever.


The haiku is a traditional Japanese form of poetry, making the TSA's statement either a capitulation to the imperialist force of Japanese culture, or a more subtle attempt to turn the form on itself and subvert the dominant paradigm.

In unrelated news, The Columbia Department of Public Safety recently confiscated two full-length, ornate samurai swords in decorated scabbards.