Hear, Hear, Poetry Friday is Here!

Yep, Poetry Friday is here and I'm happy to host our poetry party. Please share your latest doings in the comments below and I'll be rounding them up here throughout the day. And thanks for stopping by!

Meanwhile, I hope you'll allow me to plug my latest poetry project (along with Janet Wong) inspired by this very tradition of celebrating Poetry Friday! It's a new anthology of poetry for children called... drumroll... The Poetry Friday Anthology. It features 200+ poems by 75 poets, plus curriculum connections for every single poem tied to the new Common Core standards (or TEKS standards in Texas). It's designed along the lines of our own blogworld Poetry Friday celebrations, providing a poem-a-week for every grade level, K-5 along with 5 minutes of skill-based activities. 

The Poetry Friday Anthology officially launches tomorrow, Sept. 1, and now includes both paperback and digital versions. The paperback includes ALL the poems and activities K-5. The e-books can be purchased as the entire K-5 collection, or simply for a single grade level K, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.

The added beauty of the e-book versions is that you can project the poem (via computer and Kindle app) and the e-book is searchable, so you can look quickly for alliteration, haiku poems, or poems about armadillos, for example! We hope you'll give it a look and help us spread the word. All the books are published by Pomelo Books and available at Amazon now.

Please check out our Poetry Friday Anthology blog for information about the Poetry Friday Mini-Grants we're offering, too!

Meanwhile, welcome to our back-to-school Poetry Friday celebration!
Sylvia

First up, Diane Mayr shares poet insights at Random Noodling.

Poetry by the mill girls of Lowell, MA is highlighted at Kurious Kitty and Kurious K's Kwotes.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong is remembered by The Write Sisters.

Jone shares an original poem here.

Myra Garces-Bacsal shares a gem by Naomi Shihab Nye at Gathering Books.

Linda offers us a found poem about today's blue moon at TeacherDance.

Look for an original "trimeric" poem by Steven Withrow at CracklesofSpeech.

Ed DeCaria features a poem and a POEMETRICS preview at ThinkKidThink.

Vikram Madan offers an original humorous poem here.

Tabatha is sharing poems by Steven Withrow today here.

Look for three poem parodies by Renee LaTulippe at NoWaterRiver.

Jeff Barger features A Poem as Big as New York City ad NCTeachersStuff.

Mary Lee Hahn offers a poem-quote from e e cummings at A Year of Reading.

Liz Steinglass gives us some back-to-school haiku here.

Robyn Hood Black explores imagination and change today here.

Joy Acey explores the LAI verse form in honor of the blue moon here.   

Katya shares a Dickinson poem about the owl outside her window at WriteSketchRepeat.

Matt Forrest shares his "Poet of the Week" feature at PACYA this week and here.

Explore childhood favorites like Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Swing" at Author Amok.

Heidi Mordhorst toots the Poetry Friday (anthology) horn at MyJuicyLittleUniverse.

Irene Latham gives us a "nerdy" poem in a guest post at the Nerdy Book Club.

Jama Rattigan highlights gems from Dare to Dream (also launching tomorrow) here.

Tara honors activist and writer Joshua Casteel with a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay at A Teaching Life.

Karen Edmisten gives us Emily Dickinson's to-do list here.

Dori Bennet says goodbye to grandkids leaving for Africa at DoriReads.

Carmelo Martin highlights poems from the new book, And the Crowd Goes Wild! A Global Gathering of Sports Poems, at TeachingAuthors.

Andromeda Jazmon Sibley shares a back-to-school "lai" poem at A Wrung Sponge.

Gotta run now. Will post more later, so please keep the comments coming! Thanks, gang. 


Now here's the afternoon/evening shift of Poetry Friday participants...

Douglas Florian considers the question, "Can a robot join Facebook?" at FlorianCafe.

Pentimento is celebrating the beginning of another school year with Paul Zimmer's poetry here.

Charles Ghigna shares a new poem inspired by The Poetry Friday Anthology at Father Goose. 

Newcomer Mrs. Merrill joins us in sharing a quote from Sharon Creech and more.

Violet posts three haiga called "Beach Poems" here.

Ben Curran writes about A. R. Ammons at The Small Nouns.

Amy Ludwig VanDerwater chimes in with a poem about last night's blue moon and Neil Armstrong too at Poem Farm.

Little Willow writes about Jennifer L. Holm's book A Big Waste which features Poetry Friday, too. 

Alvaro Salinas, Jr. shares an original poem, "The 2nd Day of 1st Grade" here.

Samuel Kent has posted five new kid-ready poems here.

Tricia is sharing Russell Hoban's classic poem "School Buses" at Miss Rumphius Effect.

Anastasia Suen shares One Two That's My Shoe! by Alison Murray here.   

And Ruth shares a Longfellow poem here.

Welcome one newcomer to our midst, Perogyo, writing about soccer poems here. 


I think that's it for today. Thank you all for sharing these lovely, varied poetry moments!

Wishing you all happy Labor Day weekends!

The Poetry Friday Anthology

I've taken a bit of a blogging break, but am back to promote the project that has been absorbing so much of my time over the last two months. It's another collaboration with friend and poet Janet Wong: THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY!

Coming just in time for the 2012-2013 school year, The Poetry Friday Anthology is available now. It's a new anthology of 218 original poems for children in kindergarten through fifth grade by 75 popular poets including J. Patrick Lewis, Jack Prelutsky, Jane Yolen, Margarita Engle, X. J. Kennedy, Kathi Appelt, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Georgia Heard and Nikki Grimes and many more.

The book includes a poem a week for the whole school year (K-5) with curriculum connections provided for each poem, each week, each grade level. Just five minutes every “Poetry Friday” will reinforce key skills in reading and language arts such as rhyme, repetition, rhythm, alliteration, etc.

Thanks to the lovely blog world of the "kidlitosphere," I've been a fan of "Poetry Friday" since the beginning (in 2006). The idea of pausing for poetry every Friday is so appealing to me, maybe because Friday has always been my favorite day of the week. I think it is a natural fit for busy teachers and librarians who can build on that Poetry Friday tradition by incorporating a weekly poetry break into their regular routines. That's the first "hook" in our book-- the idea of sharing a poem every Friday! (More often is even better, but Friday is the hook!)

The other hook is the call for connecting with the new Common Core standards (and in Texas where the Common Core was not adopted-- don't get me started-- connecting with the TEKS, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). We've always had curricular standards of one kind or another, but poetry hasn't always been an explicit component. It is now! Of course this worries me a bit as poetry may also be abused and butchered in the name of test preparation. But the challenge is to provide guidance in sharing poetry that respects the integrity of the poem, celebrating the pleasures of language, while reinforcing the necessary skills. That's the second book "hook"-- we've tied every poem in The Poetry Friday Anthology to the Common Core standards (and TEKS standards in Texas) for poetry.

This book is first and foremost a quality anthology of 218 original poems for children written by 75 of today’s most popular poets. Children in any state (or country) can enjoy, explore, and respond to these poems. However, we have also come to realize that educators, librarians, and parents are looking for guidance in how to share poetry with children and teach the skills within the curriculum as well. Thus, this book offers both. It's part poetry collection and part professional resource guide-- quality poetry plus curriculum-based suggestions for helping children enjoy and understand poetry more deeply.

You'll find more information about the book at the PoetryFridayAnthology blog here. Our official launch date is Sept. 1 when we hope to offer an e-book version of the book as well-- projectable and searchable! But the print version of the book is available NOW to help jumpstart the school year with poetry. I'll also be posting a few nuggets from the book here in the near future-- as well as more about our new joint publishing venture, Pomelo Books. Meanwhile, Janet and I hope you'll give the book a look and help us spread the word.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Poetry Friday sharing this week at Mary Lee's A YEAR OF READING and Andi's A WRUNG SPONGE.


Posting by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2012. All rights reserved.

Poetry and Skills: Oxymoron?

Last Friday I had the opportunity to do a workshop for some 100 librarians (and a few teachers) in the Dallas area-- all about poetry for young people. (Thanks, Terry Roper, for the invitation and for a wonderful morning!) Each participant received a copy of my latest book, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists, and I brought, presented, and circulated some 50 poetry books.

As I talked about new trends in poetry for children, collection development, and poetry across the curriculum, I shared poem after poem after poem-- involving the audience in reading key lines out loud, making sound effects, or participating in some way. I also tried to point out as we rolled along, how each of these poems met one of the skill elements that are now part of the Texas school curriculum (called the TEKS = Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills).

I tried to show how to navigate that balance between sharing a poem in a fun and engaging way, while subtly guiding learners toward noticing aspects of poetry that are identified in the skills. By the end of the morning, I pointed out that we have "covered" all of the skills for poetry in K-5. They were so impressed! Here's the list I provided of my examples, in case you'd like to see how that might work. Keep in mind:

1. ... that poems should first be enjoyed for their own sakes
2. ... presenting poems in participatory ways (in various choral strategies) gets your learner "into the poem"
3. ... coming through the "back door" to skills is the goal-- helping your learner see and hear the poetic elements after enjoying the poem through multiple readings

The following list is just a sample. MANY poems could be selected for any one of these skill variables. And each of these poems could easily highlight more than one of these skill variables. My choice of matching poem to skill is my choice alone.

Poetry Aloud Here:
Sharing Poetry with Kids in Classrooms, Libraries, and Beyond, K-12

20 TEKS Poetry Elements and EXAMPLES

(See also: Glossary of Poetry Terminology, The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists, p. 268)


Poetic elements:
1. rhythm (“Words” by Nikki Grimes from Another Jar of Tiny Stars)
2. rhyme, rhyme scheme (e.g. end, internal, slant, eye) [“Bob’s Bicycle Helmet” from Button Up by Alice Schertle]
3. meter (“A doe will pick a thicket” from Nest, Nook & Cranny by Susan Blackaby)
4. repetition (“Trespass” from Emma Dilemma by Kristine O'Connell George)
5. imagery (“In the Hood” from Mirror, Mirror by Marilyn Singer)

Poetic form:
6. narrative poetry (“School’s Out” from Countdown to Summer by J. Patrick Lewis)
7. lyrical poetry (“Amazing Face” by Rebecca Kai Dotlich from Amazing Faces edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins)
8. humorous poetry (“Techno Cat” from A Curious Collection of Cats by Betsy Franco)
9. free verse (“Liberty” from Declaration of Interdependence by Janet Wong)

Figurative language and literary devices:
10. alliteration (“Welcome to the Night” from Dark Emperor by Joyce Sidman)
11. onomatopoeia (“The Choosing” from Won Ton by Lee Wardlaw)
12. personification (“Index” from Bookspeak by Laura Purdie Salas)
13. metaphors (“Purple pours” from Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman)
14. similes (“Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes from Poetry Speaks Who I Am edited by Elise Paschen)
15. hyperbole, understatement, overstatement (“1975 Year of the Cat” from Inside Out & Back Again by Thannha Lai)
16. irony (“Missing” by Cynthia Cotton from America at War edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins)
17. paradox (excerpt from “Chapter 1: Because of You” from Orchards by Holly Thompson)

Poem format:
18. graphical elements (e.g. capital letters, line length, word position, punctuation) (“Drone” from Unbeelievables by Douglas Florian)
19. line breaks (“Tideline” from Water Sings Blue by Kate Coombs)
20. stanzas (“Places I’d Love to Van Gogh Someday” by Bob Raczka from The Arrow Finds its Mark edited by Georgia Heard)

The audience loved this help in this list format at the end, so I thought I might share it here too. Of course I hope this kind of guided poetry sharing will be in the context of LOTS of poetry sharing. After all, the best part of summer swimming lessons is playing in the pool!

COMING SOON:
If I haven't mentioned it already, all this focus on poetry, skills, TEKS, and the Common Core has led to a new collaboration with friend and poet Janet Wong. Brace yourselves... we're about to publish The Poetry Friday Anthology, a collection of 218 new, original poems for kids (K-5) by 75 of today's top poets, complete with skill links for each poem for the teacher/librarian/parent. Much more to come on this project very soon, I promise!