- BY: Poetry Center
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On Wednesday June 18, join the Chicago Poetry Center for our annual summer celebration! In line with CPC’s anti-censorship roots and wrapping up our 50th anniversary year, the headlining poet for our 2025 Summer […]
- BY: Poetry Center
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Poetry @ The Green at 320 returns for summer 2025! The Chicago Poetry Center and The Green at 320 S. Canal are proud to reintroduce this free, weekly reading and open mic series co-curated […]
- BY: Poetry Center
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Letter sent by CPC Executive Director to all board, staff, and Poets in Residence on Monday, February 3, 2025: As news mounts of organizations changing their values or language due to pressure from the […]
- BY: Poetry Center
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From February through June of 2025, the Chicago Poetry Center is offering free online Critical Conversations: Anti-Racism sessions open to all. Drawing on CPC’s decades of workshop facilitation, Critical Conversations use poetry as a […]
- BY: Joy Young
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O-School students celebrated the last day of our residency this week. Together we ate delicious Dum Dum suckers, while each group created Ars Poetica poems, poems that describe the art of writing poetry. I […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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This week at Smyser, we spent time editing and revising our poems! We talked about how with most things, you have to keep doing it to get better: soccer practice, theater rehearsals, returning to […]
- BY: Joy Young
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For their 9th week of poetry, Twain 6th graders revised and completed their past poems from our residency. Together we read the poem “The Blank Page” by Chetana Kamath. In her poem Kamath is […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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For our final week at Henry Elementary, poets took to the stage and shared their work with their fellow 7th graders! Check out these photos from our last session as these brave poets snapped […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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The first step to building empathy is putting ourselves in the experiences of another, especially if that other can’t speak. The 7th graders of Nettlehorst asked themselves what inanimate objects, animals, or fictional characters […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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All the best poets know that a writer is not judged by their writing alone, but by their ability to rewrite. The 8th graders of Clinton reflected on the power of revision as we […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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All the best poets know that a writer is not judged by their writing alone, but by their ability to rewrite. The 7th graders of Clinton reflected on the power of revision as we […]
- BY: Timothy David Rey
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Students made the old-school paper game called a ‘Cootie Catcher,’, which is a form of origami used in children’s games. Parts of the catcher are labeled with words that serve as options for a […]
- BY: Joy Young
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Twain 5th graders are so close to the end of our poetry residency. For week nine, students prepared to reach the finish line. Together we read the poem ” “The Finish Line,” by Laura […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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Today, Brennemann 2nd Graders in Ms. Richter‘s class worked collaboratively to create a recipe for how to cook a poem: “How to Cook a Wonderful Poem”by the Class First: get pencils, papers, and erasersfrom […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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On the last day of our 2nd grade poetry residency at Swift – we looked at Carl Sandburg‘s poem “Pencils,” in which I omitted a number of words and lines. Students came up with […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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For our last session, Brennemann 5th graders talked about the different ways that “freedom” is experienced as they move from being younger to older. They talked about not having homework, chores, or responsibilities, and […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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To bring our terrific 6-week poetry residency with 2nd graders to a close, we talked about (1) things that poetry is: “many things that inspire people;” “imaginative;” “an art;” “its own world;” “art & […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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At our final week at Social Justice, we explored how to make zines and the deep and rich community that zine culture creates. We shared both digital and in-person communities around zine making from […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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Metaphors allow us to transform ourselves, if just for a moment. The 7th graders of Nettelhorst asked themselves what they could become after we read “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee” by N. Scott Momaday. […]
- BY: Cai Sherley
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During our most recent workshop, Hyde Park began our session by attempting to fill in a map of the United States. This sparked a discussion about what it means to be part of a […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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We all have sounds we adore and sounds that make us cringe. The 7th graders of Nettelhorst asked themselves what these sounds were for them before we read “Sweet Like a Crow” by Michael […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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At Smyser Elementary, students explored blackout poems and created their visual poetry through art. Check out what they created! Mrs. Showalter’s ClassHazel P. Valerie S., “Where have all the children gone?” Noah C. Sienna […]
- BY: Joy Young
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For their 8th week, Twain 6th graders used poetry as a crystal ball to see into their futures. I asked students “What do you wish to do in the future? How can you achieve […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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Today Brennemann 2nd graders talked about what it means to be curious: to be interested in learning what we don’t know and wanting to understand how things work and why things and people are […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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Last Friday Swift 2nd graders began with a chat about things that are small enough to fit in one’s pocket, such as coins, crumbs, pieces of candy, and folded up pieces of paper. We […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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Sometimes words are not enough to convey what we are trying to say. The high schoolers of MLA thought about what objects, animals, or shapes meant a lot to them before reading “Social Distancing” […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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What can writing with a partner accomplish that can’t be done alone? This is the question the 8th graders of Clinton reflected on after watching “Cat Poem” by the Get Lit Los Angeles BNV […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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What can writing with a partner accomplish that can’t be done alone? This is the question the 7th graders of Clinton reflected on after watching “Cat Poem” by the Get Lit Los Angeles BNV […]
- BY: Joy Young
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We only have a few weeks left in our residency, so for their 8th week of poetry Twain 5th graders thought about writing poems for someone else. Together we read and discussed the poem, […]
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“Writing poetry makes me feel like I can see myself, like I can see my reflection, but not in a mirror, in the world. I write and I know I can be reflected.”
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