All posts in Poems

‘Ask me about what my wonderful family does and i will tell:’ Abecedarians

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 – […]

“I capture every moment…”

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 […]

‘Something on my mind…” Simile Poems

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 […]

Choosing our Stories

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 […]

“I am a force, a legend, an echo”

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 […]

Walk the Walk

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 […]

The parts of me I love

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 […]

Blackouts and Erasure Poetry

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 […]

Would you like to see…?

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 […]

Comic Poems!

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 […]

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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