Brian Lara on WNYC and I said at the beginning of the hour, we were going to do two April call-ins this hour, the first one for Arab American Heritage Month and the one to close the show today in our last 15 minutes or so here on the last Friday of National Poetry Month

we're going to make some time for poetry. So for these last few minutes of the

show today we are opening the phones to invite you to recite a few lines from

any poem that has personal significance to you. You can recite them from memory or you can

read them. We're asking you to keep these to about 30 seconds per caller so we can

get a bunch of people in here but it's open mic, open stage for any poem that is meaningful to you.

212, 433, WNYC, call in to recite and try to keep it to about 30 seconds.

Obviously in many cases that won't be a whole poem.

It'll be an excerpt.

Okay, some of you might call in with Haiku's and you'll do them in nine seconds.

But any poem you love, you are now

welcome to recite about half a minute of.

212, 433, WNYC, 212, 433 WNYC. 212. 433 9692 with a few days to go National Poetry Month.

212. 433 9692. Our lines are filling up fast. I will go first and then we'll hear you.

212 433 9692 right after this. Brian Lear on WNC, as we're going to take your calls on National Poetry Month,

open mic on the Brian Lear show, about 30 seconds of any poem you love,

212 433, WNYC.

I will start with the first stanza from William Butler Yates, the second coming, because this poem is, well there's a line,

there's a phrase I'll even call it that gets excerpted from this poem a lot in political commentary these

days but not the whole poem.

So keeping to our time limit suggestion, here is just the first stanza.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre,

...