Last week was our final (!?) classes for the 4th grade poetry residency. To celebrate, I brought in “The Republic of Poetry” by Martín Espada, and five different students from each classroom read one of its stanzas aloud. We mainly talked about Espada’s imagery as well as his use of repetition in the poem—a device we’ve thought about a lot over the course of the last ten weeks—but we also discussed if anything described in the poem could really happen? For example, could you print poems on boxes of chocolate, “use odes for recipes,” “read to baboons / at the zoo,” or “rent a helicopter / to bombard the national palace / with poems”? It all seemed very possible, if not exactly practical; but does poetry have to be practical? Does poetry have to be anything in particular, aside from what we want it to be?
When it was time to write our final poems of the residency, I defined republic for the students: a form of government where people elect, or choose, their leaders. So a “republic of poetry” would be a country or place ruled by poetry. I asked each student to describe what happens there, and their individual lines created the following class poems.
Many thanks to the teachers and students for making the last ten weeks so awesome!
Mrs. Carlson, 4th Grade
In the republic of poetry, everything is made out of paper and ink.
The republic of poetry, an imaginary world where anything can happen.
In the republic of poetry, incorrect punctuation rules are allowed.
In the republic of poetry, everyone’s name is something descriptive.
In the republic of poetry, poetry is the world.
In the republic of poetry, baseball pitches are thrown using puns.
In the republic of poetry, floors are made of stanzas and walls are made of poems.
In the republic of poetry, all poets get free puppies.
In the republic of poetry, every single poet can think of any kind of poem.
In the republic of poetry, if you watch TV, they read you poems.
In the republic of poetry, everyone has to speak in a poem.
In the republic of poetry, everything is in stanzas.
In the republic of poetry, you’ll get charged for felony and counterfeiting if you don’t stamp this is a poem on everything you see, including store items.
In the republic of poetry, people have to write poems every day.
In the republic of poetry, everyone watches the president read a random poem on the news every day.
In the republic of poetry, all mugs and cups have different lines of poetry on them.
In the republic of poetry, everybody’s job is to write poems.
In the republic of poetry, poems are in the air and everywhere.
In the republic of poetry, everyone’s a poet!
In the republic of poetry, you can write everything and anything in poetry.
In the republic of poetry, people don’t care about sports.
In the republic of poetry, the writing rules are broken.
In the republic of poetry, everybody’s blinded by happiness in poems.
In the republic of poetry, everything speaks in riddles or rhymes.
In the republic of poetry, the best person is personification.
In the republic of poetry, everybody is a poem that says their characteristics.
In the republic of poetry, it’s a world of never-ending words.
In the republic of poetry, when you write something down it magically appears.
In the republic of poetry, the image in your mind is written down on the paper.
Mrs. Rupp, 4th Grade
In the republic of poetry, everyone speaks with rhymes.
In the republic of poetry, everybody is crazy!
The republic of poetry should be an athletic group where you should always play sports and dance and eat chicken.
In the republic of poetry, the main subject of schools is poetry.
In the republic of poetry, everything has colors.
In the republic of poetry, everyone makes a poem twice a day.
In the republic of poetry, there are no rules.
In the republic of poetry, everything is in black & white.
In the republic of poetry, the clouds are made to look like words in a poem.
In the republic of poetry, rainbows fart Skittles.
In the republic of poetry, all you have to do is be cool.
In the republic of poetry, there’s poems on chocolate.
In the republic of poetry, your key is a poem.
In the republic of poetry, the password for everything you need to do is a poem.
In the republic of poetry, to open your door you need to recite your own special poem.
In the republic of poetry, on every dollar there’s a poem.
In the republic of poetry, poetry is a noble art.
In the republic of poetry, anything can happen.
In the republic of poetry, we’re rich & famous.
In the republic of poetry, electricity is poetry.
In the republic of poetry, the books are full of poems.
In the republic of poetry, everybody has a pet.
In the republic of poetry, everybody plays sports.
In the republic of poetry, people fly on trees.
In the republic of poetry, no one stands alone.
In the republic of poetry, everyone has their own amusement park.
In the republic of poetry, poetry is floating in the air.
Mrs. Travis, 4th Grade
In the republic of poetry, there is beauty outdoors.
In the republic of poetry, poetry would be on the back of people’s shirts.
In the republic of poetry, everybody plays Clash Royale.
In the republic of poetry, poetry is on people’s houses.
In the republic of poetry, everybody plays sports that are named after poems.
In the republic of poetry, everybody plays basketball.
In the republic of poetry, everybody loves poetry.
In the republic of poetry, people like that it’s deep.
In the republic of poetry, people drop poetry down from an airplane.
In the republic of poetry, when it rains everyone gets to read poetry—it’s raining poems.
In the republic of poetry, it’s a thoughtful way of a great life.
In the republic of poetry, it’s very nice.
In the republic of poetry, every time someone sits down they have to write a poem.
In the republic of poetry, it rains candy.
In the republic of poetry, you can eat free donuts.
In the republic of poetry, pizzas are full of candy.
In the republic of poetry, you get free bacon.
In the republic of poetry, the Warriors will win the finals!
In the republic of poetry, there is a pig named Poopy and he was very yummy.
In the republic of poetry, everything’s candy.
In the republic of poetry, the Blackhawks will come back!
In the republic of poetry, everything is free.
In the republic of poetry, it nothing it something it © OL
In the republic of poetry, it tells a life story.
In the republic of poetry, poems are money.
In the republic of poetry, poems mean a lot.
In the republic of poetry, poems are prayers.
In the republic of poetry, nobody eats pigs.
In the republic of poetry, poems are more valuable than diamonds.
In the republic of poetry, everything is made of poetry.
In the republic of poetry, on every tombstone there is a poem describing that person.
In the republic of poetry, poetry comes from the heart.
In the republic of poetry, poetry is the only thing that can stop war.
In the republic of poetry, poetry is the poet’s bible.
Mr. O’Brien, 4th Grade
In the republic of poetry, people will go to the master of poems and he will say this ancient saying and a poem will pop up in his hands.
In the republic of poetry, they rip up pieces of poem paper and put it in a seed spreader and use it as a fertilizer.
In the republic of poetry, there are ancient people of poetry drawn on a cave.
In the republic of poetry, Pokémon will live until the end of the world and so on!
In the republic of poetry, people are smart, intelligent, they are nice to each other, every day is sunny, and every night you will sleep peacefully.
In the republic of poetry, the poem paper is ice cream sprinklers.
In the republic of poetry, everybody plays soccer.
In the republic of poetry, everybody gets days off.
In the republic of poetry, people eat newspapers.
In the republic of poetry, there are demons that hurt you with poem swords.
In the republic of poetry, there are space battles, no one wins, and the Force will be destroyed.
In the republic of poetry, there are gigantic poem waterslides.
In the republic of poetry, there’s a civil war with giant poem swords and poem bows.
In the republic of poetry, you need to read poems every day for a living.
In the republic of poetry, the cakes have poems made of chocolate on them.
In the republic of poetry, I have a 100,000 inch TV, a billionaire home, and I’m famous and a dog and one million dollars.
In the republic of poetry, people live happy and peaceful lives and there is no drama.
In the republic of poetry, we no longer have to walk if we don’t want to.
In the republic of poetry, everybody goes to school and writes poems every day.
In the republic of poetry, people use poetry to make their rocket ships fly.
In the republic of poetry, they have lightsabers made out of poems.
In the republic of poetry, I would be helpful to people.
In the republic of poetry, people love poetry.
