"Chip"

I have been looking through various poetry books... gearing up to begin my weekly after school club...

Poetry Slam!

I'm not exactly a huge poetry buff but I think I can make this club awesome.  :)

Yesterday I had 3 students in the library for an 85-minute study hall and I mentioned the Poetry Slam Club to them. I told them if they were bored, I'd love to have them write a poem that I can use as an example! [Same goes for you... reading this blog... send me a poem or two!] We talked about what an acrostic poem is... thinking that might be easy/fun...

Tom is a 7th grader and brought this poem to me this morning...

I love it! So cute... and I'm proud of him for writing it. (And he really couldn't have picked a better topic! haha, kidding.)


While reading through poetry books during lunch today, I found some great poems - funny, interesting, creative... I think the kids will like them! I hope to ignite some passion within them and see where it leads to. I'm planning a variety of weekly activities... but hope that this club will conclude with a big Poetry Slam event if the kids are into it.

Below is a poem that I find funny... and true!



The Days Have Names

The days have names,
the months have names,
and so do clouds and hurricanes.

But not the weeks:
of weekly names
nobody speaks--

it doesn't seem to bother us
that weeks pass by,
anonymous.

     -JonArno Lawson



Ha - I think it's cute. Now... this next one took a little "chip" out of my heart...



Geography Lesson

Our teacher told us one day he would leave
And sail across a warm blue sea
To places he had only known from maps,
And all his life had longed to be.



The house he lived in was narrow and grey
But in his mind's eye he could see
Sweet-scented jasmine clinging to the walls,
And green leaves burning on an orange tree.



He spoke of the lands he longed to visit,
Where it was never drab or cold.
I couldn't understand why he never left,
And shook off the school's stranglehold.



Then halfway through his final term
He took ill and never returned.
He never got to that place on the map
Where the green leaves of the orange trees burned.



The maps were redrawn on the classroom wall;
His name forgotten, he faded away.
But a lesson he never knew he taught
Is with me to this day.



I travel to where the green leaves burn,
To where the ocean's glass-clean and blue,
To places our teacher taught me to love - 
And which he never knew.



     -Brian Patten