All posts in Larry Dean

Similes Gone Wild!

Last week, we discussed Lucie Thésée‘s poem, “Poem.” When the students received their handouts, many thought it odd that it was titled that way, and I asked why the poet might’ve called it by […]

Food Likes and Alikes

Our last class was a few days before Thanksgiving, so I brought in Bill Knott‘s fantastic poem, “Feeding the Sun.” It begins, “One day we notice that the sun / needs feeding,” and the […]

Animal Magnetism

Last week, we did things a little differently. The students partook in a joint collaborative effort between the Poetry Center and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; you can read a little more about it here. […]

I Dream of…

For our prior classes we read “Last Night As I Was Sleeping” by Spanish poet, Antonio Machado. We had talked about the use of repetition with the previous poem, and here the poet repeats […]

Monster-iffic

For our second week of classes, so close to Halloween, we read Dorothea Lasky‘s “Monsters.” The poem imagines “a world where there are monsters” everywhere, outside and inside. I asked the students if the […]

The Secret — of Skinner West!

Yesterday was the first day of classes for the new school year at Skinner West. It was great to see Ms. Rupp and Ms. Beaudry again, and to meet Ms. Schwartz and Ms. Ward. […]

Centos of the Universe

For our final day of 4th grade classes, students picked their favorite poems written this year, and from those, their favorite lines. I then asked them to queue up randomly, and recorded the lines […]

One Poem May Hide Another

For our penultimate class, I brought in Kenneth Koch‘s intriguing poem, “One Train My Hide Another” — easily the longest (and most complicated) work we have read to date. In it, the speaker describes […]

Beautiful American Words

We had some very interesting discussions last week regarding Delmore Schwartz‘s sonnet, “The Beautiful American Word, Sure.” Among the issues, we thought up as many synonyms for sure as possible: free from doubt, confident, […]

Mothers, Fathers, Sisters, Brothers

This past weekend was Mother’s Day, so in anticipation of it we read and discussed Jane Kenyon‘s lovely short poem, “My Mother.” This seemingly simple, story-like poem is actually deceptively complex. For example, we […]

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I’M FROM THE CITY LIGHTS / STREAMING OUT IN THE NIGHT / AND HUGE SKYSCRAPERS / TOWERING OVER THE LAKE – MELISSA E., 7TH GRADE POET