Mayor’s poetry offers insight into school curriculum

Kicking off the city’s annual “Poem in Your Pocket” celebration today, Mayor Bloomberg read a poem of his own creation — a four-stanza ode to hope inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem.

Bloomberg’s poem was composed according to the rules of a writing assignment that’s given to students in grades 3-5, according to the city’s press release about Poem in Your Pocket day. The Envelope Project asks students to write a poem based off of a famous first line, then open an envelope to read the original. Dickinson’s poem is here, and this is Mayor Bloomberg’s, complete with a shout-out to the city’s schools: