Put a poem in your pocket or tuck one into someone else’s pocket this Thursday because April is National Poetry Month and April 26 is Poem in Your Pocket Day.

This annual event was started by the Academy of American Poets who “encourage folks to stuff their pockets with their favorite poems and spend the day sharing them with others,” says Richard Hansen, proprietor of The Book Collector in Midtown.

Hansen is no stranger to small poems, as his own project, Poems-For-All, is about the creation and scattering of poems.

“It is about building tiny books of poetry to be scattered like seeds,” he said. “These little books fit perfectly into pockets.”

Hansen creates these books for special events like the upcoming Food Bank benefit at the Sacramento Poetry Center. He has created more than 1,000 tiny poetry books since he began the project in 2001.

He has published poems by Kathy Kieth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Xico Gonzales, Russell Salamon, Robert Creeley, and began the project with “The Bells of the Cherokee Pony” by d.a. levy.

Two bookcases of Poems For All (Image by: Sandy Thomas)

If you find yourself in Davis on Thursday , the current poet laureate, Allegra Silberstein, will read poems at various locations throughout town and will be at the Mary L. Stephens Library on 14th Street from 3 to 6 p.m. listening to poems and issuing slips for a free book, which will be donated by the library.

The library will also set up a station with prompts for writing poems.

In the evening, Luna’s Café will feature Bill Gainer, who always has poems falling from his pockets. People are invited to share their poems at an open mic. The event begins at 8 p.m.