All posts in Ola Faleti

Blue is everything good – Color Poems

​Colors are all around us, and some show up in our lives more than others. For this 15th week at Waters, we talked about the colors that are meaningful to us. We watched the […]

Blue, do I know you? Color Poems

Colors, colors, colors. There are many poems, songs, and paintings devoted to particular colors and how they show up in our lives. So during out 14th session with Waters 7th graders, we explored colors. […]

Ears like an elephant – Self Portrait poems

Last week, Waters 6th graders read and wrote self-portrait poems. First, students drew a “cartoon” self portrait of themselves, some of them in human form and some in the form of a different creature. […]

Once I was funny like really funny: self-portrait poems

For this 13th week with Waters 7th graders, we explored the self-portrait poem. How do we paint ourselves? Mary Jo Bang’s self portrait poem paints a pretty odd, confusing version of herself. We talked […]

Instructions: Grow up to be troublemaker with hair as gold as wheat

For our lucky 13th poetry session with Waters 6th graders, we talked about instructions – why does one give them? What makes for good ones? We opened with an activity where a few students […]

the opposite of me – Persona poems

For our 12th week with Waters 7th graders, we explored Persona poems. These are poems written in the voice of someone else. For this lesson we discussed examples of celeb personas (like Beyonce/Sasha Fierce, […]

I should be me – Persona poems

For our 12th week with Waters 6th graders, we explored Persona Poems. These are poems written in the voice of someone else. For this lesson we read one of my poems (!!) titled “Lavender” […]

why isn’t it baseball season already? Letter Poems

For the 11th session with Waters 6th graders, we looked at letter poems, also known as epistolary poems. Students thought about figures they would talk to if they could (living or dead, fictional or […]

stop what you are doing – Instruction poems

Why do we give instructions and whom do we give them to? These are the questions that anchored this 11th week with Waters 7th graders. We read Dana Levin’s “Instructions for Stopping” and tried […]

Collage poems

Poetry and collage aren’t so far removed! Water’s 7th graders explored the intersection of the two by looking at examples from artists like Krista Franklin and Marcus Dawson. Then students created their own collage […]

Donate

Support our student poets today!

CONNECT WITH US!

Twitter Facebook-f Instagram

STUDENT POETRY

Click on a school name below to browse student poems from current school partners.

POETRY ARCHIVE

Click on a school name below to browse student poems from our archive.

RECENT FACEBOOK POSTS

TESTIMONIALS

“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.

“Writing poetry makes me feel free.”
-Buenda D.

“Writing poetry is like your best friend.”
-Jessica M.

Search

CONTACT US

General Inquiries
info@poetrycenter.org

Programs (School & Organizational)
programs@poetrycenter.org

Reading Series and Events:
curator@poetrycenter.org

The Chicago Poetry Center is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
FEIN: 23-7400515

SEND US A POSTCARD

Chicago Poetry Center
1448 E. 52nd St, #256
Chicago, IL 60615

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