All posts in Mayda del Valle

Monster Poems: “It smells like gummy tacos…”

Do you believe in monsters? This week we drew an exquisite corpse monster and then talked about things that lurk around the corner and go bump in the night. The monsters in these poems […]

Recipe Poems

What’s the recipe for joy, and what are the ingredients that make up who we are? This week we wrote recipe poems inspired by Recipe For Happiness, written by a former CPC student. You […]

Family Celebrity Poems: “You are the best…”

What if our family members were celebrities? This week we wrote poems about a member of our family and celebrated all of the things we love and admire about them. Maybe it’s their cooking, […]

Rhythm: “I need to shine like a star…

This week we read Gwendolyn Brook’s signature poem We Real Cool and talked about how rhythm is an essential element of writing poetry. Students then picked a favorite song and used it’s rhythm as […]

Personification: “I just want true answers…”

This week we read a poem written to a star by a former CPC student. Then talked about personification as a way to approach larger than life ideas, emotions or concepts. We learned that […]

Around the Table: “You give me comfort…”

This week we read Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo and discussed all of the different things that can happen around a kitchen or lunch table. Food, drama, games, gossip, a table […]

Quiet Poems: “For one minute, just hush…”

For our first session back after Spring Break, we had a few new faces join our 7th and 8th graders. We read The Quiet Machine, a prose poem, by Ada Limón and talked about […]

Personifcation- “Why do you do the things you do?”

On Monday at Perez, we talked about personification, and how it can help us write about larger than life ideas, like time, emotions or nature. We also explored how we can personify everyday objects […]

8th Grade- Personification Part 1

If you could ask the moon anything you wanted, what would you ask? And what would it say if it could respond? This week we talked about personification after reading Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem […]

Time to get ready!

This week we started to get ready for our Clissold Elementary assembly! All of our after school Poetry Club participants will be reading an original poem in front of their classmates for the Student […]

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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