- 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: Poetry Center
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Looking for a way to devote time and energy to your poetry without the distractions of your busy life? Apply to a writing residency! Join the Chicago Poetry Center as poet Keith S. Wilson […]
- BY: Poetry Center
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Let’s make it 50 for 50! With Your Support We Can Fund 50 Residences Next Year As we head towards the end of the calendar year and launch our annual campaign, the Chicago Poetry […]
- BY: Josie Levin
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This week Water’s 6th and 7th graders in Ms. Smallwood and Ms. Hernandez’ classes read “Thank you Letter (with footnotes)” by John Grandits. In class we discussed creating double meanings in our writing and […]
- BY: Joy Young
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The Chicago Poetry Center is now in its 8th year as Chicagoland Regional Host Organization for the national youth poetry competition, Poetry Out Loud. Poetry Out Loud is a collaborative project of the Illinois […]
- BY: Timothy David Rey
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Students wrote “Abecedarian” poems that use the entire alphabet as the lefthand spine of the poem. Lesson Note: “My essential poetics is simply to be doing something, making something, playing, struggling, learning something – […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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In Mrs. Siciliano’s 7th+8th grade class, we looked at “Sorrow Is Not My Name” by Ross Gay. Through the exploration of similes and metaphors, we learned about holding the complexity of things being both […]
- BY: Timothy David Rey
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Students read Mike Taylor’s poem, ‘Thinking About You,’ and experimented with rhyming, exploring their daydreams and creating similes. Lesson Note: “I learned that the only way to get a thing done is to start […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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In our first meeting at Social Justice High School in the after school program, we shared a poem by Tonya Ingram titled, “I am 22.” In this poem, Tonya shares about herself, her diagnosis […]
- BY: Cai Sherley
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This week, Hyde Park’s poets discussed big egos and big statements. Using Nikki Giovanni’s poem “Ego Tripping,” we explored the power of hyperbole and what it means to overcome and bet on yourself. These […]
- BY: Larry Dean
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Last week we discussed our most rhymingest poem to-date, “People Walk Around” by Frederick Seidel. Skinner students are already savvier regarding slant or half rhymes; while Seidel’s haphazard scheme relies largely on the impact […]
- BY: Joy Young
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To celebrate Valentine’s Day, the theme for our eighth session this week the O-School students thought about things that they loved about themselves. I showed a few black and white photos and words from […]
- BY: Russell Price
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This week the young viking writers escaped the cold through playing with blackout and erasure poetry. Our source text was back issues of Tin House magazine and I’m so proud of how they changed […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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As usual, when working with 2nd graders – many of whom have never had a creative writing practice – the first 5 sessions are meant to introduce students to how poems look on the […]
- BY: Josie Levin
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This week in Ms. Smallwood and Ms. Hernandez’s classes we read an excerpt from Cartoon Dialectics by Tom Kaczynskki and discussed how something can both be a comic and a poem. We came up […]
- BY: Teresa Dzieglewicz
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Today, we read “Green” by a 4th grade student named Malik. We thought about how colors can remind us of memories and experiences and feelings. The kids were full of energy and enthusiasm and […]
- BY: Timothy David Rey
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Students wrote letter poems called Epistolary poems after reading Kobe Bryant’s poem, ‘Dear Basketball.’ Lesson Note: “When you make art, and you don’t know what’s going to happen, you’re involved in the mystery that […]
- BY: Cai Sherley
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This week Lawndale tried their hand at Blackout poetry. Using Aesop’s fables, song lyrics, and the full text of the national anthem, poets explored how to tear something up and put it back together. […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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Today in Mrs. Siciliano 7th + 8th grade class, we looked at Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s poem, “Like Totally Whatever.” We learned about tone of voice, and the power of using it in poetry, particularly in […]
- BY: Cai Sherley
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This week Hyde Park’s poetry club read “Where I’m From” by Willie Perdomo, a poem about the people, lessons, and experiences that define our “origins.” Enjoy these poems by two Chicagoans about the push […]
- BY: Teresa Dzieglewicz
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Today in Ms. Reed’s 3rd grade, we talked about play and surprise. We talked about how poetry can give us tools to express some of our deepest emotions and thoughts, while also giving us a […]
- BY: Joy Young
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This Tuesday for our 7th poetry session at the O-School we embraced our emotions. As a warmup activity students played saw scenes from the movie “Inside Out 2,” the main character Riley is going […]
- BY: Ola Faleti
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Beautiful magic can be made when words and images collide. For that reason, Waters 7th graders dove into the world of Ekphrastic Poetry. Ekphrastic poems are written in response to an image, often a […]
- BY: Ola Faleti
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Beautiful magic can be made when words and images collide. For that reason, Waters 6th graders dove into the world of Ekphrastic Poetry. Ekphrastic poems are written in response to an image, often a […]
- BY: Josie Levin
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This week students dipped their toes into art criticism. We read “Untitled #9, 1981” by Victoria Chang, after the Painting by Agnes Martin of the same name. We discussed how Chang’s poem described the […]
- BY: Larry Dean
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James Tate’s poem, “Untitled” begins, “I sat at my desk and contemplated all that I had accomplished / this year.” The speaker then runs through a litany of ‘accomplishments’ growing more and more nutty, […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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At Henry Elementary Week 2, we learned about lines, line breaks, and stanzas! We watched and read a poem by José Olivarez titled “Mexican Heaven.” Students then created their own poem of heaven or […]
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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.”
-Oscar S.
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