Poetry Challenge: Spring Inspiration

As National Poetry Month comes to an end, listeners submitted their poems for WNYC's last prompt of the month: Send us your best original poem about spring.

Read some listener submissions below, and thank you to everyone who wrote in! Check out the hashtag #NYcityverse to see all entries.

Tweet #NYcityverse

#NYcityverse (Spring)
It's Sunday morning on Bank Street. Let's go for a walk.
Pull on boots. Or sandals. And talk.
You can wear your jacket. Or not.
We'll drink iced coffee. Or order it hot.
Me, mysterious in my new shades. You, not so much, in your old cap.

— Kirsten Lambertsen (@MsPseudolus) April 21, 2018

#NYcityverse # I’ve had good times in winter And fun in summer and fall But can you guess the season I’ve had most fun of all? Spring! (Written at age 8, now 78)

— Joan Hall (@JHCollage) April 24, 2018

I hope @WNYC can forgive me for closing out the poetry challenges with a few more characters than a single tweet would allow. All that formatting killed me! #NYcityverse pic.twitter.com/LP5sCO3oma

— Wyman Meers (@Why_Man52) April 22, 2018

#nycverse #NYcityverse @WNYC #Spring
Spring, You are like a playground swing,
Back and forth you go
Like a wavering beau
Sun then sleet on the street
Spin and repeat.
by: Karen Dinan

— Karen Dinan (@Karendinan35) April 20, 2018

Skeletal shadows begin to distort as bud appear on the giant oak tree.
Precipitation, once white and clean, crashes down as rain to make mud and mist.
The kids in the neighborhood come outside to play, filling the air with glee.
Spring is here and we are blessed. #NYCityverse

— Death of Civility (@deathofcivility) April 20, 2018

A tulip waited all winter anxiously tripped into spring,
awkwardly wondering what day it is.

A bird chirped questioning its wings,
looks at its map not sure what to say.

We think its spring with gloves and coats,
dreaming of the outdoors from within our homes. #NYcityverse

— Evan Venegas (@evanvenegas) April 21, 2018

Unafraid of a late snow, stream of French Bulldog pee,
gentrifcation, loogeys or taxi exhaust

here they come again
year after year
they’re beauuteeeful #NYcityverse

— georgia (@glanyny) April 22, 2018

#NYcityverse #NationalPoetryMonth #Spring #NYC @WNYC pic.twitter.com/YgrkAXIB5R

— Bleicher & Newton (@bleicher_newton) April 20, 2018

@shubasu
Dog walking guy.
Wears shorts. In park. In January.
Idiot.
Want to say, “Put on some pants.”
April. 32 degrees. Guy in shorts.
Want to say,, “You go!”#NYCityverse

— Anna Murray (@apmurray123) April 26, 2018

#NYcityverse #spring #poetrymonth #shortpoems Winter ends its frigid journal
Pages transpose verse
For prose writ vernal
Sleeping blooms shrug icy burdens
As warm rays nourish them to splendors verdant -Daniele Imperiale

— Daniele Imperiale (@D_Imperiale1016) April 26, 2018

Winter in early spring
shrouds the bones of branches bent,
still content to rest awhile
in delicate crystalline clouds.
Be patient. There is no rush.
Tomorrow’s sun will move the earth,
already soft and warm enough
to melt and drink this lingering kiss of death.
#NYcityverse

— Alex Edwards-Bourdre (@alexeb2) April 21, 2018

#NYcityverse. Inner-city dogwoods in Spring, bodacious aliens tickled by their complicity shed white confetti on our concrete neighborhood thin polka dots sail on puddles iridescent with car oil at the curbs sneaking in a quiet party. By Madaha Kinsey-Lamb

— theblacklamb (@theblacklamb) April 21, 2018

#nycityverse
shrieking into the storm.
And just this once
I wish I were a girl again
screaming at the wind.

— Audrey Raden (@RadenAudrey) April 22, 2018