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What Are Your Plans For National Poetry Month?
It will be difficult to exceed the release of an indie-published book I had last year.
Last week, I read a post from one of the Poetry Friday participants about their plans for National Poetry Month.
This poet, who is also a teacher-librarian, was considering different forms of poetry to focus on during April. It seems like she settled on acrostics.
Other than last year, I never focused too much on Poetry Month. We did our poetry unit in March when I led a writer’s circle for third-grade students. I don’t know why — it’s just when it fell.
I think it was because I had them submit to a national compilation of student poetry each year with a mid-March deadline. Thirty-three of my thirty-six students over the six years I led the group were published in that compilation. I’m proud of that.
Working with student writers remains one of my favorite enrichment endeavors. It was by working with them on simple poetic forms such as cinquain, diamante, haiku, color poems, and others that I developed a love for poetry.
Last year, when I worked with a refugee student who lived overseas, she had to write an “I Am From” poem. I was to help her with it but our session got canceled. When she showed…
