Mar 16, 20216 min read

My Growing Relationship with Poetry

My earliest memories of poetry was from my mom’s two hard-copy copies of A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I remember my mom reading from these books to my brother and I when we were younger. I went downstairs to ask my mom if she still had those books and she said, “Why would I ever get rid of them”, and rushed up to our attic to grab them. One of them even has a handwritten note from her mom saying “To Julie, Love, Mom and Dad, Christmas 1979”. My mom was ten years old when she received both of these books. I asked her what her favorite poem out of these was and she said, “ Sick, which I am pretty sure is on page 58 of Where the Sidewalk Ends”. Sure enough, she was correct! She recalls how she would read this poem everyday to herself when she was younger. My mom loved Shel Silverstein and how his poems were short, told a story and were funny. She said she never liked or understood abstract poetry, which made Silverstein's poems appealing.

As a lot of people say, my mom and I are very similar. I love reading poetry that is literal, short, tells a story, and is engaging. When I read a poem and I can understand what the author is conveying without having to do a deep dive into each line, I am more likely to love that poem than a poem that I have no clue what the author is talking about. I really loved reading All the Small Poems and Fourteen More by Valerie Worth and illustrated by Natalie Babbitt for that reason. All the poems within this book were, as the title says, small. Sweet and short poems are engaging to me because I typically do not read poetry, which I will explain later. A lot of these poems were cute and made me smile. They even inspired me to write a few of my own poems! I chose to remix Cat and base it off a photo of my friend's cat Dexter, who I was cat-sitting a few months ago. He looked so peaceful in the sun beam and I wanted to try and write about it! Then, I also wrote about my favorite flower and color, Lilac. This poem started off with wanting to remix another poem, but I ended up with a different final product. I started with the colors of lilacs and what I believed they complimented. I really enjoy how this poem turned out. The author was asked in an interview to describe her writing and she stated, “Wordy! I enjoy description - I like words, and words are the tools that writers use, just like paint is the tool that artists use. I think words are fun, and I have a lot of fun using them”. I love this quote because it shows young writers to play around with words and have fun doing so!

I also enjoyed reading Firefly July selected by Paul B. Janeczko and Illustrated by Melissa Sweet. This book has 33 different authors (information on all authors at the end of the blog) and 36 short poems! That fact alone blew me away. I loved all the different styles of poems within this one book about the four seasons. This book is engaging and useful in many ways. The illustrations alone are gorgeous and captivating to the reader. The illustrations were done with purpose which I really cared for and could see how Sweet captured every detail the poem was conveying through her art. Another way the book is useful is how many mentor poems are throughout the book. Firefly July written by J. Patrick Lewis on page 18 uses ABAB rhyme scheme and Daybreak Reminds Us written by Cid Corman on page 4 is an example of a haiku. This variety of poems in the book allows kids to see multiple styles of poetry used seamlessly to create one story. Teachers can also use poems as mentor texts for students if working on a specific skill or teachers can show kids how to use a topic from the book and make their own poem or remix the poem! I decided to write my own poem that could be added into the “Spring” section of Firefly July. Spring to me means allergies!

Writing poetry has been an uphill battle for me. When I was in elementary school, we would learn a type of poem and what made it different from others, like a haiku. We would read multiple haikus and identify the syllable pattern in all of them. Then to finish off the unit we would write five of our own haikus. This was normally done with no modeling, idea building, or books! We would never return to them, we would just move on to the next type of poetry. Poetry became boring to me and I hated when we had to do poetry because it was hard to get excited about. I avoided reading and writing poetry as much as I could in middle school, high school, and in college. I did not have a great experience with poetry in elementary school, which turned me away from the whole concept of poetry. Until now. Now I want to learn about poets and different styles of writing poetry. How as teachers we can use books to teach kids about poetry. Poetry does not have to be this concrete, repetitive task. It can be colorful and wonderful!

I want the experience of poetry in my classroom to be fun! I want students to not be upset when it is time to do poetry. I want the texts I use to be diverse, engaging, and relevant. By doing this, kids will be more excited to learn poetry, about poets, about the craft of poetry, etc. I believe poetry should have a more prominent place in the classroom because right now, at least from my experience, I have seen poetry being taught in a way that is just busy work. Kids are having to identify the rhyme scheme and then put it in a folder where they never touch it again till the next poem of the week. I want my students to feel that poetry is a way to express themselves and their ideas in a way that is creative. To do this, I need books and resources that are engaging! Below I have compiled a few resources to get me started!

I also need to set up an environment in my classroom where poetry is appreciated and loved. I found a great blog post that captures how to teach poetry effectively that speaks to what I want to uphold in my classroom. To do so, I need to make learning about poetry exciting. Making sure that the poems I am introducing to my students are ones they can relate to. This is my TOP priority when selecting any text. I have to hook my students into poetry from the start or they are going to be like me when I was younger and think poetry is boring. Reading funny poems, like my moms favorite Sick by Silverstein, will show students that poetry does not always have to be serious, but fun and creative! Next is to read the poems aloud more than once to the students. This allows the students to become engaged in the story and just listen the first time. Then, the second time the students can listen for poetry elements the author is using. I will also make sure to prompt the students to get them listening to what I want them to find. Do any words stand out? What was the message behind this poem? Also, sticking with the poem for more than one day! Create a whole lesson around a poem that will get the students familiar with the topics they are learning. In my classroom library area, I would love to set up a poetry corner! A place dedicated to poetry! This way students can reread some of their favorite poems or fall in love with new poems! Also, this is a great way to display mentor texts! Starting out each day with a read aloud poem to get students thinking about poetry. Exposing students to interviews and videos of the poets to create a personal connection to the poems they are reading. There are so many more aspects of teaching poetry and setting up a poetry environment that I could list! Check out this blog post to find more ideas! https://mrsrenz.com/10-poetry-tips/

Additional Resources: Firefly July and All the Small Poems and Fourteen More

Firefly July: A year of Very Short Poems Lesson Plans