It's almost mid-April, but it's not too late to celebrate National Poetry Month. The Academy of American Poets founded National Poetry Month in April 1996. On the website for National Poetry Month 2017, you can sign up to receive a poem-a-day and find other ways to appreciate poetry this month and beyond.
And yes, you do like poetry. I used to be a person who thought I didn't perhaps like poetry. I didn't not like it, but maybe I thought it wasn't quite for me. People - myself included - sometimes think poetry isn't for us, because we have stereotypical or limited views of the genre. Poetry is not just Shakespearean sonnets (which are lovely) or ancient epics or indecipherable abstractions or cutesy-sentimental rhymes. Poetry encompasses those things and so very much more. If you appreciate song lyrics or are moved by a particular prayer or have laughed at a limerick, you like poetry.
Sharing poetry with children, as a classroom teacher and as a homeschool mom, has made me appreciate the genre more. It helped open my eyes to the diverse forms that a poem can take. If you have children or work with children, by all means please read poetry to them! There are so many delightful collections specifically for children and don't underestimate their ability to appreciate more complicated poems as well. Memorizing a short poem together can be a fun challenge.
Some of the more formulaic types of poetry are especially appropriate (and lots of fun) when having children try writing their own poetry. Kids really like writing cinquain poems, acrostic poems, haiku, limericks and list poems. I've enjoyed trying some of those forms as well. Early on in writing this blog, I did a thirty day blog challenge. Many of my posts were short and silly poems that I composed to meet my daily goal. Recently, many of the stories I want to tell or ideas I want to share have come out in the form of poems.
I really have come to appreciate poetry, as a reader and as a writer. And I hope you do too. Please read and share some poetry before the end of the month. Feel free to comment and share your favorite poems or poets here.
I'll close with a side-by-side presentation of two poems that I shared in a poetry unit I taught. And, for a completely different take on poetry, I highly recommend the documentary Louder Than a Bomb about a high school poetry slam contest in Chicago. It's a very powerful film.
Mary, I'm so interested in watching the documentary you recommend.
ReplyDeleteI think poetry finds its way into my hands and heart but I rarely seek it out. Unlike a novel or a magazine or a newspaper or a blog, I rarely pick up a whole book of poems.
Here is a poem I once memorized for Poem in Your Pocket Day (A day I think I might have invented (?) where everyone at the K-8 school I was working at as the librarian picked a poem to memorize or have in their pocket and recite to people who asked to hear the poem in your pocket.)
Keep a poem in your pocket
And a picture in your head
And you'll never lonely
At night when you're in bed.
The little poem will sing to you
the little picture bring to you
a dozen dreams to dance to you
at night when you're in bed.
S0 -
Keep a picture in your pocket
and a poem in your head
and you'll never feel loneyly
at night when you're in bed.
-Beatrice Schenk de Regniers
Lori, you have to watch it - it's so good! We watched it with our kids, and they really liked it too. It does have profanity and serious/heavy situations. Definitely appropriate for teenagers though. I love the poem you shared! There is actually an official Poem in Your Pocket Day. It's April 27th this year. :)
DeleteHow silly and embarrassing that I thought I might have invented that Poem in your Pocket day! I suppose I did create the activity? Or maybe it was a suggested activity and I just organized it for the school I was at? Who knows. I do remember that it was loads of fun. Even some of the middle schoolers enjoyed it. :-)
ReplyDeleteWe will definitely watch Louder than a Bomb. Kacie will probably enjoy it. Not sure about Cole but he usually creeps in and joins us eventually...