美国国家公共电台 NPR Have You Abandoned Your New Year's Resolutions? Tell Us In

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It's still early days of the new year. Let's start it with a poem.

KWAME ALEXANDER, BYLINE¹: I am resolved throughout the year to lay my vices² on the shelf; a godly, sober course to steer³ and love my neighbors as myself - excepting always two or three whom I detest⁴ as they hate me.

I am resolved that vows⁶ like these, though lightly made, are hard to keep; wherefore I'll take them by degrees, lest my backslidings make me weep. One vow⁵ a year will see me through, and I'll begin with No. 2.

MARTIN: That was Kwame Alexander reading an excerpt⁷ of "New Year's Resolutions," a Rudyard Kipling poem. Kwame, happy new year. I haven't talked to you in this new year, 2020.

ALEXANDER: I know. Happy new year to you, Rachel.

MARTIN: We made it. We made it to a new year.

ALEXANDER: It only took 12 months...

MARTIN: (Laughter).

ALEXANDER: ...But, yes, it is here. Happy 2020 to you, my friend.

MARTIN: Who knows what the new year will bring?

ALEXANDER: And the new decade.

MARTIN: Right? So many poems to recite and write.

ALEXANDER: There's not enough time for all your rhymes, Rachel.

MARTIN: Hey, there you go. OK. So 2020 has arrived. We are going to start strong. Did you make a New Year's resolution?

ALEXANDER: I did.

MARTIN: Did you?

ALEXANDER: I hired a personal trainer.

MARTIN: Hey.

ALEXANDER: Yes. My guy Imran (ph) is getting me fit and healthy.

MARTIN: I love it. Good for you.

ALEXANDER: What about you?

MARTIN: So I make the same one every year. It sounds not very exciting. But it's - (laughter) which means, I guess, I don't achieve it. I am drinking more water in 2020. Stay hydrated.

ALEXANDER: Stay hydrated, my friend.

MARTIN: Yes.

ALEXANDER: It's important.

MARTIN: Yes, and also to just have more poetry in my life. You have been kind of a window into this world for me. And it makes me happier when we have these conversations, and so I resolve to welcome more poetry into my life.

ALEXANDER: Do it. You know, we often talk about the resolutions that we make, but what about the ones we fail to keep?

MARTIN: Right. Not that I've ever done that, of course. I keep all my resolutions, as I've made clear. I imagine that you, because you are who you are, you might have written a poem about this.

ALEXANDER: Well, now that I keep all my resolutions, I had to look back in my files, and I did find something. It went a little something like this.

To the flower box I forgot to water, the dinner rolls I swore I wouldn't eat; to the old friends I still don't call, to my continued obsession⁸ with red meat. To the empty church pew, the tithes⁹ not paid. To not posting less on my Facebook page.

MARTIN: Less social media for you this year.

ALEXANDER: Yeah, hopefully.

MARTIN: Yeah, I know. OK. So what you heard Kwame do right there, those were a bunch of couplets. This is where we want you, our listeners, to come play with us in the poetry sandbox. We want to hear your couplets, right?

ALEXANDER: Exactly. A couplet is just a pair of lines that rhyme.

MARTIN: So we want these couplets to be about not the New Year's resolutions you make or you keep, the ones that you keep abandoning.

ALEXANDER: Just have fun with it - from eating more greens to not waiting to the last minute to do your homework.

MARTIN: Yeah, updating your resume, learning a new language. We want you to submit your poems to npr.org/resolutions. And from all of those submissions¹⁰, Kwame is going to do what he does. He's going to make one of our crowdsourced poems. Submit your poems to npr.org/resolutions. And then what happens, Kwame?

ALEXANDER: And then I'll take all of these amazing submissions and sort of cull¹¹ them down to a few and create a community poem, as you would, of all the beautiful lines we've received from our lovely listeners.

MARTIN: Awesome¹². Kwame Alexander, he's a regular contributor to Morning Edition, the author of the graphic¹³ novel "The Crossover" and the inaugural¹⁴ innovator-in-residence at the American School in London. I'm excited for this one. We will catch back up with each other in a couple of weeks when we've got these submissions, right, Kwame?

ALEXANDER: Yes, indeed, Rachel. Cheers.

(SOUNDBITE OF LULLATONE'S "FOR ALL THE FORGOTTEN RESOLUTIONS (PIANO VERSION)"