Edge Poems - #6

The bookshelves are a wreck, but poetry is blooming in the library.  Junior high students have come over the past couple of days, and teachers have been contributing as well.   The display shelves are filling up.

Freedom

by Aidan Brooks

Martha & Greg's 7th grade

A Series of Unfortunate Events

by Ben Siegel

Martha & Greg's 7th grade

 

The Civil War

by Reed Haury

Martha & Greg's 7th grade

Edge Poems - #5

A "virtual" poem (on display in photography only) created by high school social studies teacher and counselor Nisha Simama.

"No Neutral Ground"

Edge Poems - #4

Students are making Edge Poems too!


"The War"
by Madison Redwine
Bonnie & Uri's 8th grade

Adria's poem can be read either way

or

"Untitled"
by Adria Gunter
Bonnie & Uri's 8th grade

Edge Poems - #3

"The History of Love"
by Junior High homebase teacher Bonnie Sparling.

The History of Love
A grammar book for you and I
Communion
Cultivating the mind of love
in relation
Everyday sacred
Joy school
Someone like you
not quite what I was planning
Bad boy
Surviving the breakup
At issue
Looking back on the end of the world
Tender at the bone
I Thought it was just me (but it isn't)
Nothing I see means anything
The power of kindness
so hard to say
What have you lost?
moment of silence
sailing alone around the room
No condition is permanent
plain and simple
Becoming whole
up a road slowly
Becoming myself
better
Durable goods
Born to ROCK

National Poetry Month Resources

If ever there was a national celebration made for literature teachers, this is it. So many resources, so many opportunities for total immersion in poetry. One of our high school teachers is asking her students to read a poem a day and respond to it in a writing journal, so I pulled together a list of web sources that will make it easy for students to find a new and different poem each night. Most of these sites also have some way to subscribe so the daily poem comes right to your e-mail or newsreader. How cool is that?

National Poetry Websites

• Poetry Foundation.org (site of Poetry magazine)
• Poetry Daily (a new poem each day)
• Poetry 180 - a poem a day for High School students , from the Library of Congress
• Favorite Poem Project -- Americans reading their favorite poems out loud, begun in 1997 by former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky
• Poets.org -- Academy of American Poets Poem a Day archive
• Poetry Out Loud - resource site for a poetry recitation competition, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts & the Poetry Foundation
• Poem-a-Day from Knopf

Poem a Day blogs

• Writing and Ruminating - blog of children's author Kelly Fineman; lots of poetry analysis, link is to poetry posts
• I'm Here, I'm Queer, What the Hell Do I Read? - blog of YA author Lee Wind; link is to GLBTQ poem posts
• 30 Poets, 30 Days at Gottabook blog -- daily posts with a previously unpublished poem by a young adult or children's author, including many by authors of col

PLUS Poetry lesson plans and ideas from my new best friend,
The New York Times Learning Network:
"11 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month with the New York Times"

Edge Poems - #2

We the People
by Junior High specialist Eric Thomas

Edge Poems - #1

by Junior High homebase teacher Tony Helms

thinking straight by Robin Reardon
Nothing Pink by Mark Hardy
so hard to say by Alex Sanchez
Some Day This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron
Acceptance by Susan Coll
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan


ps -- I never realized how hard it is to take good photos of library books -- if not the shiny mylar covers, it's the spine label. Or both!