New Suit

New Suit

A new suit is crackly

it smells like wrapping paper

and humiliates my old socks. 

-Eve Merriam

Most kids wear T-shirts or other comfortable clothing to school these days, but they might still be able to relate to this poem.  I found it in Fresh Paint:  New Poems by Eve Merriam.  Here are some things that she said in A Jar of Tiny Stars:  Poems by NCTE Award-Winning Poets  (edited by Bernice E. Cullinan).

            “I’ve sometimes spent weeks looking for precisely the right word.  It’s like having a tiny marble in your pocket, you can just feel it.  …  I do think poetry is great fun.  That’s what I’d like to stress more than anything else:  the joy of the sounds of language.”