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Georgia Heard’s Poetry Workshop
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Where Do I Find Poetry?
--Georgia Heard
I open my eyes and what do I see?
Poetry spinning all around me!
In small ants trailing over the ground,
bulldozing dry earth into cave and mound.
In a hundred grains of ocean sand,
that I cradle in the palm of my hand.
In a lullaby of April rain,
tapping softly on my windowpane.
In trees dancing on a windy day,
when sky is wrinkled and elephant gray.
Poetry, poetry! Can be found
in, out, and all around.
But take a look inside your heart.
That’s where a poem truly likes to start.
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twitter: georgiaheard1
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Things
by Eloise Greenfield
Went to the corner
Walked in the store
Bought me some candy
Ain’t got it no more. Ain’t got it no more.
Went to the beach
Played on the shore
Made me a sand house
Ain’t got it no more. Ain’t got it no more.
Went to the kitchen
Lay down on the floor
Made me a poem
Still got it. Still got it.
We Are Trees
our roots
connect
with the roots
of other trees
our branches
grow wanting
to reach out
to other branches
Francisco X. Alarcon
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Valentine for Ernest Mann
Naomi Shihab Nye
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You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.
Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.
Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.
Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock in your drawer,
the person you almost like, but not quite
and let me know.
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From poetry we learn the language of heart and soul, with particular attention paid to rhythm and sound, compression and precision, the power of images, and the appropriate use of figures of speech. And yet it is also the genre that is most playful in its attention to language, where rhyme, pun, and hidden meanings are constant surprises. The identification and analysis of the elements generally associated with poetry – metaphor, simile, personification, and alliteration – have an enormous impact on student reading and writing not only in poetry, but in other genres.
-- from The Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework
Two Poetry Craft Tool Boxes
1.Meaning2. Music
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Imagery
Figurative Language
Metaphor
Simile
Word Choice
Personification
Lines and Line Breaks
Stanza
Rhythm
Rhyme
Repetition
Alliteration
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Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
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Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
--Langston Hughes
Dragonfly
This sky-ballerina,
this glimmering
jewel,
glides in a gown
of lucid blue—
with wings that you
could whisper through.
--Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Ducks on a Winter Night
Ducks asleep
on the banks of the pond
tuck their bills
into feathery quills,
making their own beds
to keep warm in.
-- Georgia Heard
Who Am I?
The trees ask me,
And the sky,
And the sea asks me
Who am I?
The grass asks me,
And the sand,
And the rocks ask me
Who I am?
The wind tells me,
At nightfall,
And the rain tells me
Someone small.
Someone small
Someone small
But a piece
of
it
all.
--Felice Holman
THE TREE ON THE CORNER
I’ve seen the tree on the corner in spring bud and summer green. Yesterday it was yellow gold.
Then a cold wind began to blow. Now I know – you really do not see a tree until you see its bones.
Lilian Moore
FOGHORNS
The foghorns moaned in the bay last night
so sad
so deep I thought I heard the city
crying in its sleep
Langston Hughes
NEW SOUNDS
New sounds to walk on today,
dry leaves talking in hoarse whispers under bare trees.
Lilian Moore
UMBRELLAS
It’s raining in the city. I hope it rains for hours. All of the umbrellas Open up like flowers.
Come look out my window! Polka dots in lines Wag their stems and tangle, Tilt to read the signs.
Plaid ones cross at corners, Striped ones wave about. It’s raining in the city; The flowers have come out.
Maxine W. Kumin
UNTIL I SAW THE SEA
Until I saw the sea I did not know
that wind could wrinkle water so,
I never knew that sun
could splinter a whole sea
Nor did I know before, a sea breathes in and out
upon a shore.
Lilian Moore
Georgia Heard’s Professional Books on Teaching Poetry
Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School
Poetry Lessons to Meet the Common Core State Standards
Climb Inside a Poem: Reading and Writing Poetry in the Primary Grades
Poetry Books for Young Poets
All the Small Poems and Fourteen More by Valerie Worth
Honey, I Love and In the Land of Words by Eloise Greenfield
I Feel the Same Way and Mural On Second Avenue by Lilian Moore
Creatures of Earth, Sea and Sky; Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems by Georgia Heard
A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms ed. by Paul Janeczko
Lemonade Sun, The Spin of Things by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Spin a Soft Black Song by Nikki Giovanni
A Writing Kind of Day by Ralph Fletcher
There Was a Place and Other Poems (out of print) by Myra Cohn Livingston
The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury selected by Jack Prelutsky
Laughing Tomatoes: And Other Spring Poems by Francisco X. Alarcon
Wake Up, Sleepy Head: Early Morning Poems Mandy Ross
Little Dog Poems and Hummingbird Nest: A Journal of Poems by Kristine O’Connell George
You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You: Very Short Stories to Read Together by Mary Ann Hoberman
Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Years by Marilyn Singer
A Stick Is An Excellent Thing: Poems Celebrating Outdoor Play by Marilyn Singer
Forget-Me-Nots: Poems to Learn by Heart ed. Mary Ann Hoberman
Poetry for Young People Series: Carl Sandburg; Robert Frost; Emily Dickinson; etc.
Science
Spectacular Science: A Book of Poems ed. by Lee Bennett Hopkins
The Tree That Time Built: A Celebration of Nature, Science, and Imagination ed. by Mary Ann Hoberman
Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies
Step Gently Out by Helen Frost
River of Words: Young Poets and Artists on the Nature of Things ed. by Pamela Michael
Lizards, Frogs and Polliwogs by Douglas Florian
Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman
Footprints on the Roof: Poems about the Earth by Marlyn Singer
History and Social Studies
My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States ed. Lee Bennett Hopkins
Lives: Poems About Famous Americans ed. by Lee Bennett Hopkins
America at War ed. by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Tour America: A Journey through Poems and Art ed. by Diane Siebert
Art
Side by Side: New Poems Inspired by Art from Around the World ed. by Jan Greenberg
Talking to the Sun: Poems Inspired from Art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art ed. by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell
Songs of Myself: Poetry and Art ed. By Georgia Heard
PE/Sports
Over in the Pink House: New Jump Rope Rhymes by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Poem Runs by Douglas Florian
Good Sports by Jack Prelutsky
Slam Dunk: Basketball Poems by Lillian Morrison
Rimshots: Basketball Pix, Rolls, and Rhythms by Charles R. Smith Jr.
Math
Marvelous Math ed. By Lee Bennett Hopkins
Math Poetry: Linking Language and Math in a Fun Way by Betsy Franco
Edgar Allen Poe’s Pie: Math Puzzlers in Classic Poems by J. Patrick Lewis
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