Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue


William Wordsworth: "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."


If the conversation around the water cooler or cafeteria revolves a little too much around any television show with a title that begins with "Real Housewives..." or latest YouTube sensation, try quoting a few lines of poetry to amaze everyone.

Tuesday, January 14 is National Poetry at Work Day. 

It doesn't matter what kind of day you're having...there's always a poem to describe your mood, the work piled on your desk, or a long afternoon.

For example, at closing time, exit gracefully with a thought from Walt Whitman:
"Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose." 
(Song of the Open Road) 

Or, William Butler Yeats:
"I will arise and go now." (Lake Isle of Innisfree)

Or, John Howard Payne:
"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."  (Home, Sweet Home!)

If your vacation is a long way off and you're staring out the window, think of John Masefield's Sea Fever:
"I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by."

Cubicle walls closing in? Percy Bysshe Shelley:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair." (Ozymandias)

Wishing for a snow day? Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow." (The Snow Storm)

Made a big mistake? Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
"I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I know not where." (The Arrow and the Song)

Too many projects? Edna St. Vincent Millay:
My candle burns at both ends, 
It will not last the night." (First Fig)

Going into a presentation completely unprepared? Ernest Lawrence Thayer's Casey at the Bat: "The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day."

If a job change isn't on the horizon, Nikki Giovanni:
"If I can't have what I want... then my job is to want what I've got." (Choices)  

Moody today? Ella Wheeler Wilcox understood:
"Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone." (Solitude)  

Feeling unappreciated? Emily Dickinson:
"I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell! They'd banish us, you know."
(I'm Nobody! Who Are You?)

Or, for a fresh start, Emily Dickinson:
"Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tunes without the words,
And never stops at all." (Hope is the Thing With Feathers)

And for all of the good days, quote e.e. cummings:

"the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful." (in just)

Happy Poetry at Work Day