April is Poetry Month..... Celebrate!

Poetry in the Classroom: From Fear to Fun.... that was the title of the session I presented yesterday at a Spring conference. I'm not sure I managed to strike fear from the hearts of the poem phobic teachers but I hope they all got something out of it. I realized one thing as I prepared for the session. I have enough info for a semester class on this! And I only had an hour and 15 minutes.... We did two activities... one reading one and one writing one. Because I am a blabbermouth and not good at estimating how long something will take I managed to short us on the writing bit. Yet, two of the participants shared their poems and we were all pretty darn impressed with the results. What a relief.

Because it's April.... and because it's on my mind... I'll post a poem. Enjoy!

In Just
by e. e. cummings

in Just-
spring       when the world is mud-
luscious the little lame baloonman


whistles       far       and wee


and eddyandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring


when the world is puddle-wonderful


the queer
old baloonman whistles
far       and       wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing


from hop-scotch and jump-rope and


it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed


baloonMan       whistles
far
and
wee