Moving Past 'Meh' with Poetry: Three Ideas for 2020 National Poetry Month

Did you know that it's National Poetry Month? I took an informal survey of one of my education classes, asking them if they like poetry, and the overwhelming response was:

I used to.

Which I kind of get. Billy Collins wrote a fabulous poem called Introduction to Poetry that uses all sorts of metaphors to describe ways to engage with poetry, lamenting the tendency to demand of a poem, "What do you mean?". I once shared that poem with an 8th grade English class, and they told me that they didn't understand it, that weird, complicated poetry is a problem, and that they hated it.

It was clearly my best day of teaching ever.

On reflection, though, I realized that the problem wasn't the poem, it was that I was asking my students to engage with poetry to 'get it' rather than to revel in it.

So, in the spirit of helping to turn 'I used to' into 'I love poetry', here are three ways you might engage with poetry FOR FUN during National Poetry Month.

1. Write in with #WriteOut. #WriteOut is a free, open online collaboration between the National Park Service and the National Writing project. It normally takes place in October, and it invites writers of all ages to take part in place-based writing activities and then connect online. With the advent of Covid-19 stay at home orders, the #WriteOut team created a 2-page PDF of place-based poetry writing activities that can be done at home. Bonus - it's formatted so that it can be printed out and distributed to students who don't have ready access to the internet. This week at online Write Free, we used one of the prompts. The header-picture is of what one of our participants created.
2. Make a poem pocket and then stick funny poems in it. National Poetry Month ends with Poem in Your Pocket day on April 30th. This year, Christina Cantrill and the National Writing Project have been encouraging people to make pockets out of items lying around their houses. Check out the 'poem pocket' link to see some of the pockets others have made. Then, when you're done making a pocket, why not stick some funny poems in it? Above, I linked to Jack Prelutsky's homepage, but you can branch out by going to the poets.org Poems Kids Like page. Don't have a printer? Just write out a few lines of your favorites.
3. Nursery Rhymes. Read them. Recite them. Find different versions of them. Collect favorites from family members on Zoom calls. Write favorites down and stick them in your pockets. Have the preschool set draw pictures of them. Want to find a bunch of new nursery rhymes? Nurseryrhymes.org has a huge list here.

I hope you revel in poetry this month. Let us know what you've done!