Well, the end of National Poetry Month is fast approaching. Hopefully you have discovered some wonderful verse over the course of this month and you will continue to read, recite, write and spread the love of poetry throughout the year. So as a final nod to Nat’l Poetry Month 2010, we offer a small sampling of poetry on the art itself.

Poems on Poetry
A Fit of Rhyme Against Rhyme–Ben Jonson
Ars Poetica–Archibald MacLeish
Epilogue–Robert Lowell
How I Discovered Poetry–Marilyn Nelson
The Poet–Yone Noguchi
The Poet at Seventeen–Larry Levis

Poems about other Poets
A Supermarket in California–Allen Ginsberg
Hysteria–Dionisio D. Martinez
On Shakespeare–John Milton
You, Andrew Marvell–Archibald MacLeish

Poems about Writing
For the young who want to–Marge Piercy
In My Craft or Sullen Art–Dylan Thomas
The Author to Her Book–Anne Bradstreet
Many of Billy Collins’ poems cover the art of writing

It’s April, which means budding trees, warmer days, and…poetry! Yes, April is National Poetry Month, so in the spirit of spring, here are two of the many resources out there that you can use to grow students’ interest in verse, or reinvigorate your own love of poetry.

The New York Times has 11 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month. Among them:

• A student challenge to create a New York Times “found poem”
• Read about contemporary “soldier-poets” and their work
• How do rap and song lyrics stack up to poetry? Are they poetry?

Scholastic has a multitude of poetry teaching resources for all levels of instruction:

• How to hold a poetry workshop for high school students
• Poetry lesson plans such as ones on haiku, poetry theater, and many more
• Tips for reading and analyzing poetry, and a ton of related resources

Feeling a bit “romantic” with Valentine’s Day nearing? This week the UK newspapers, The Guardian and The Observer, are highlighting one Romantic poet a day. On The Guardian’s website, you can read an introduction to each poet, listen to audio of some of their seminal works and download podcasts of discussions. Here is a snippet from the intro to Coleridge by Richard Holmes:

So it’s easy to forget how strange, how captivating, how haunted Coleridge’s actual poems are. Why is it, for example, that so many of them are set at night? Why do their outer landscapes always dissolve into inner dream worlds? Why are they so full of guilt? And yet why are they also so often suffused with beautiful, healing, glimmering moonlight?

So far this week they have covered Byron, Keats, Burns, Wordsworth and Coleridge, with Shelley and Blake to come in the next two days.

“The wind may blow the snow about,
For all I care, says Jack,
And I don’t mind how cold it grows,
For then the ice won’t crack.
Old folks may shiver all day long,
But I shall never freeze;
What cares a jolly boy like me
For winter days like these?”

–Sarah Orne Jewett, “A Country Boy in Winter”

Do you, as Wallace Stevens said, “have a mind of winter”? Do you get lost in thoughts of snow-laden tree branches and frost-covered windows? Or are you of another mind altogether; a mind that leans towards warmer climes and shuts down at the thought of putting on another layer of thermal clothing? Well, we have a list of seasonal poems to suit either mindset. Would you rather celebrate the winter weather in Baer’s “Snowflake” or wallow in the cold despair it can bring in Rexroth’s “The Bad Old Days”? Take a look at these other chilly POL poems:

“Birches” by Robert Frost–All the ice-covered trees you need
“I Know, I Remember, But How Can I Help You” by Hayden Carruth–The northern lights and doe, a deer
“Icebound” by Walter Bargen–Slipperiness
“Preludes” by T.S. Eliot–Lonely winter mornings and evenings
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost–The woods are lovely, dark and deep
“The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy–Respite from winter gloom in the form of birdsong
“The Snow is Deep” by Kenneth Patchen–The simple beauty of snow
“The Snow-Storm” by Ralph Waldo Emerson–Wind as artist, snow as medium

Stay warm!

Of all of the lesson plans that we have online and in the Teacher’s Guide, the one that garners the most praise from educators is the Tone Map.

This 1 -3 day lesson plan is designed to show students that many poems move through a series of moods and tones to tell a particular emotional story. It has a term list for use in the classroom with nearly 200 tones from “abashed” to “zealous” to spark students to learn to describe mixed emotions and distinguish subtle shifts in tone and mood. Not only will they build their emotional intelligence, they will perfect their recitation skills by knowing how to portray the shifting tones and moods of a poem.

Click here to download the Tone Map lesson plan and other great planning resources for teachers.

“I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,”

-Lisel Mueller, “Monet Refuses the Operation”

Much of reading and reciting poetry lies in each individual performer’s interpretation of that poetry. Here is an animated interpretation of one of our POL poems, “Cartoon Physics, Part 1,” read by the author, Nick Flynn. This short video is part of a series of short poetry films on the Poetry Foundation website. After watching that poem, check out these other animated adaptations of POL poems:

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden
“Dona Josephina Counsels Dona Conception Before Entering Sears” by Maurice Kilwein Guevara
“Weighing In” by Rhina P. Espaillat
“mulberry fields” by Lucille Clifton

There are also a few non-animated videos of POL poems being read by the authors: “What Kind of Times Are These” by Adrienne Rich, “Touch Me” by Stanley Kunitz, and a great archival video of Robert Frost reading “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

• Annotated poems
• Writing ideas
• Discussion questions
• Glossary terms
• Discussion guides
• Articles for teachers and students
• Teaching tips
• Poetics essays
• Audio recordings

Become more comfortable with poetry–settle in and start exploring www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/index.html for numerous ways to make teaching and learning poetry easier and more enjoyable.

Days are getting cooler, leaves are changing, autumn is everywhere and a new Poetry Out Loud season is off to a strong start.  If our site traffic is any indication, more and more students are beginning their searches for those perfect poems. While you can look through the comprehensive alphabetical listings of poems or poets, we thought we’d highlight some of the other ways to search that the site offers.

The Poems link in the side navigation takes you to a myriad of different ways to search for your ideal poems:

• Want to know what poems were added over the summer? Click on the Newly added poems link.
• Have no idea who wrote the poem that is stuck in your head? Try looking for it in the Browse by first line listing.
• Don’t want to search at all? You can get a random poem or poet.
• And for teachers looking to find examples of alliteration or villanelles–there’s a section devoted to Poetic Forms and Terms.

Look around; take your time. And although in the end, like Frost’s traveler, you may be obliged to choose between newfound favorites, enjoy the journey of discovering all the poetry the site has to offer.

The new school year is upon us: a fresh start for students, teachers and parents alike. A new start for us here at POL too. One exciting development is this blog-a place for you to exchange tips and ideas, get questions answered and have discussions about teaching and learning poetry.

NEW LESSON PLANS–We have heard your requests for more lesson plans and we’ve added links to two plans by Chicago author and teacher Eileen Murphy. Both these lesson plans use “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden to explore meaning through sound and performance techniques.  Murphy chooses this poem as an example of how sonic devices can be used to develop characters and conflict within a poem. (Also, check out this very cool animated reading of the poem on the PF website.)

Which brings us to this question:  If you could choose only ONE poem to teach to your students, what would it be, and why? What one poem is essential for your students to leave your class with? Is it a poem that students really respond to, or one that lends itself perfectly to teaching poetic form in the classroom? Does it lend itself to lively class discussions, or do you teach it simply because you love it?

Students: Do you have any memorable experiences learning poems in the classroom? Are there any poems that have become especially meaningful to you because how they were taught?