"How-to" poems are simply poems that somehow use the format of instructions, often in surprising ways. "How to See Deer" by Philip Booth is a how-to poem that also has some interesting structures: it's written in enjambed tercets...simply, three-line stanzas (tercets) that have sentences which wrap around and continue from one stanza to the next (enjambment). Students also connected with the natural imagery in the piece. See the poem here to see what I mean.

In her poems "Homage to My Hips" and "Homage to My Hair," Lucille Clifton raises up and praises her body for what it is and the power it contains. We asked students to consider what they would like to pay homage to about themselves, adopting a confident swagger.

Ms. Dube (Room 316) - 9th grade

It's Just My Body
Alexis T.

As we approach the end of the Poetry Center's residency at Skinner Classical school, the students and I took advantage of the moment of reflection; not just on the year, but on their own great histories. We read the poem On Turning Ten, by Billy Collins; a poem that honors the memories we already have of our lives while we are still young people. It praises the history we already possess, and considers how a young person's past informs and shapes who he or she already is.

Welcome Back!  During this lesson, the students and I took the opportunity to think about the beauty that we see in the world, and especially in small things. Studying imagism, which is a minimalist form of poetry that favors precise imagry and clear, plain language, we looked at Ezra Pound's two line poem "In a Station of the Metro", which, in it's entirity, reads like this:

IN A STATION OF THE METRO

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Welcome back! During this lesson, students continued to explore the power of descriptive language to evoke emotion and relate the mood of a setting. We read an excerpt of T.S. Elliot's Poem Preludes, which conveys the mood of a dreary neighborhood in the rain at lamp-lighting time. Without ever saying "the neighborhood was sad" or "lonely", Elliot relates the emotion of the place by sharing a series of images: "...the burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps the grimy scraps of withered leaves about your feet...".

Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton like to write poems together, like this one--"Exquisite Candidate"--where they write in the voice of a very strange candidate for President.

Duhamel sometimes speaks about the "third voice," the new poetry that emerges when writers work off of each other. What happens when two people say yes, take each others' ideas and run with them, open to surprise? Some very strange and amazing superheroes, that's what.

All year long we've worked on our imagery and trying to engage with the senses, but we hadn't yet focused on onomatopoeia: words that reflect the sound of what they are (splash, hit, smack, plop, thump, crack...). We started by focusing on the sounds found in Li-Young Lee's "Falling: The Code." I asked our fifth-graders to write a poem describing an "unseen" sound.

Room 329, 5th grade

Creaking
Hannah C.

Our last session came and passed. It was too brief. It was anti-climactic. It was in short, an ending.

But we know better. We know well enough to see that each finishing line is just the starting line for the next event. I leave the students and staff of Elihu Yale Elementary, finding that I have more knowledge of this city, its people, and myself.

For our final session together, we looked at the brief poem, "Dreams", by Langston Hughes. It is short and sweet and gets at the heart of what I want to say to the students as this school year end.

The last few sessions at Yale have been a blur of words and feelings. Having held our last three sessions in a compressed span of 10 days, we have experienced a mini poetry boot camp of sorts.

To commemorate the end of the 2010-2011 residency, 4th, 5th, and 6th graders from Pilgrim gathered in the chapel earlier this week to share one poem apiece from the year's writing. I was reminded of (and humbled by) the amazing variety of voices and experiences here, with uniquely distinct poems written in response to ideas shared across grade levels. Great work, everyone!

Congratulations to all the student readers, who did a terrific job, and thank yous to teachers, Mrs. Sobjack and Mrs. Tighe; to principal, Mr. Maring; and to the wonderful (and well-named) support staff at Pilgrim!