- BY: Poetry Center
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On Wednesday June 18, join the Chicago Poetry Center for our annual summer celebration! In line with CPC’s anti-censorship roots and wrapping up our 50th anniversary year, the headlining poet for our 2025 Summer […]
- BY: Poetry Center
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Poetry @ The Green at 320 returns for summer 2025! The Chicago Poetry Center and The Green at 320 S. Canal are proud to reintroduce this free, weekly reading and open mic series co-curated […]
- BY: Poetry Center
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Letter sent by CPC Executive Director to all board, staff, and Poets in Residence on Monday, February 3, 2025: As news mounts of organizations changing their values or language due to pressure from the […]
- BY: Poetry Center
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From February through June of 2025, the Chicago Poetry Center is offering free online Critical Conversations: Anti-Racism sessions open to all. Drawing on CPC’s decades of workshop facilitation, Critical Conversations use poetry as a […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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At Smyser Elementary, we learned about extended metaphors and onomatopoeias through Maya Marie Washington’s poem “Alien.” Students were tasked with writing their own extended metaphor poem where they turned into one non-human thing. Check […]
- BY: Joy Young
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Things became mythical for Twain 6th graders for our 7th week of poetry. A myth is an ancient story or legend explaining the early history of a group of people or about a natural […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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This week at Henry Elementary, we learned about erasure poems and blackout poetry as an extension of this! We looked at examples from Austin Kleon and Tracy K. Smith’s “Declaration.” Poets were tasked with […]
- BY: Madison Mae Parker
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This last week at Social Justice, we read and watched a portion of Ross Gay’s “Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude.” We learned about juxtaposition and how to implement this into our writing. Check out this […]
- BY: Joy Young
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The 7th week of poetry for 5th graders involved imagining an ideal day for themselves. I asked students, “What does the perfect day look like to you?” Some students responded with ideas such as […]
- BY: Timothy David Rey
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Students used magazines and created cut-up poems! They used ‘found language’ and images to create new meaning. Lesson Note: Creative Artist guru Julia Cameron says the part of us who create art is about […]
- BY: Timothy David Rey
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Blackout Poetry: A blackout poem is created when a poet takes a marker (usually a black marker) to already established text, like that from a newspaper, and starts redacting words until a poem or […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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Many of our 5 senses are deeply connected to memory. This week the 7th graders of Nettelhorst reflected on their favorite foods and the people, places, and things connected to them. After reading “The […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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Metaphors allow us to transform ourselves, if just for a moment. The students of MLA asked themselves what they could become after we read “The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee” by N. Scott Momaday. Upon […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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Sometimes words are not enough to convey what we are trying to say. The 7th graders of Clinton thought about what objects, animals, or ideas meant a lot to them before reading “Our Tree’s […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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Sometimes words are not enough to convey what we are trying to say. The 8th graders of Clinton thought about what objects, animals, or ideas meant a lot to them before reading “Our Tree’s […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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Last week Brennemann 5th graders talked about the blues as a feeling of sadness, and as a musical form created by African-Americans in the late 1800s. We watched video of our example blues song, […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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For our 4th sessions, I asked Nettelhorst 2nd graders to think about the kind of world they want for themselves and others. We talked about serious hopes – such as safety for all children […]
- BY: Timothy David Rey
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Students were instructed to grab a book and find words and passages that stood out to them, or to use random words as the starting point for a poem. They were then instructed to […]
- BY: Cai Sherley
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One of my favorite forms of poetry is the exquisite corpse (beautiful body) — a poem written by multiple poets, often without knowing what the previous poets have written. Last week, Hyde Park wrote […]
- BY: Cai Sherley
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This past Monday was a bittersweet day at Lawndale. Our last session marked the end of a residency full of games, conversations, and yes — poetry. We also had the entire 8th grade reunited […]
- BY: Cai Sherley
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This past Monday at Howe, we merged poetry & rap with their intuitive collaborator — basketball. We began by defining poetry — getting creative with words to express emotions. Then we explored other places […]
- BY: Joy Young
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For our week 18 of poetry, O-School students explored ideas about memories. We discussed the importance of remembering. Whether it’s remembering happy moments such as birthday parties or family vacation, or sad memories like […]
- BY: Maya Odim
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Students read Gwendolyn Brooks, “Young Heroes II | For Don at Saalam”, and we talked and wrote about what a hero is an where we find ours. There is no one mold for a […]
- BY: Maya Odim
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Students read Nayyiryh Waheed’s poem “fresh” and wrote about what it means to be on the way or almost to something —maybe a goal, maybe an event— and what we might think about to […]
- BY: Maya Odim
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Students read “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” by Maya Angelou, and wrote poems about their fears, overcoming them and ways they will help help protect others and help them overcome fear. In the words of […]
- BY: Joy Young
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Twain 6th graders became mind readers for their 6th week of poetry. I asked students, if you could look inside someone’s head, what interesting things would you find? Most students wished they knew what […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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The first step to building empathy is putting ourselves in the experiences of another, especially if that other can’t speak. The 7th graders of Clinton asked themselves what inanimate objects, animals, or fictional characters […]
- BY: Noel Quinones
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The first step to building empathy is putting ourselves in the experiences of another, especially if that other can’t speak. The 8th graders of Clinton asked themselves what inanimate objects, animals, or fictional characters […]
- BY: Leslie Reese
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Today Brennemann 2nd graders read two “little” poems written by Nikki Grimes: “Moon” and “Shower.” Both poems had six lines or less, yet they packed a lot of interest. As a group we worked […]
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“Writing poetry makes me feel like I can see myself, like I can see my reflection, but not in a mirror, in the world. I write and I know I can be reflected.”
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