All posts in Timothy David Rey

“more and more people/ are getting mad yet some still find a way” Table Poems (part 2)

8th Grade students wrote about a household object, mainly a table, and things that happen around the eating place. Inspired by Joy Harjo’s poem, ‘Perhaps the World Ends Here.’ Lesson Note: We live in […]

“build a boat, and then/ they see…”: Table Poems

Students discussed what happens around their eating table and then crafted these beautiful poems inspired by ‘Perhaps the World Will End Here’ by Joy Harjo. Lesson Note: ‘My approach to writing has this belief […]

“In the hot Summer/Radio ready/ Blue leather walls”: Memory Poems

Students wrote poems about recent and not-so-recent memories and continued working with short lines and sometimes minimalism. Lesson Note: “To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement…Anybody can have […]

“After the glory of the day”: Night Poems

Students doodled and drew pictures of what happens at night before they drift off to sleep and then wrote short poems using sensory details. Lesson Note: “Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for […]

“I saved it/ then saved another”: Memory Poems

Memory is powerful! 6th and 8th-grade students warmed up with doodling, then crafted memory poems, using short lines, and sensory details! Lesson Note: ‘[Practice]…the act of moving the hand across the page and writing […]

Fade To Black: Blackout Poetry

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 is formed or […]

‘go in search of crocodiles’: Travel Poems

We took a look at Richard Blanco’s prose/mix/hybrid poem about missed destinations, We Are Not Going to Malta. Students were then given travel brochures exhibiting lush locales (decidedly not always depicting reality), and asked […]

‘a secret/ Recipe passed down…’: Portrait Poems

Students read Instructions to the Artist by Billy Collins before crafting their own portrait-inspired poems. Lesson Note: According to findings by the leading researcher on the power of writing and journaling for healing purposes, […]

‘I’ll start’: Star Poems

Students read Choose Something Like A Star by Robert Frost and listened to a choral arrangement of the same poem, before trying their hands at their own poems addressing something… bigger than themselves. Lesson […]

‘when you separate it/ Into sections:’ Wallace Stevens Imitations

Inspired by Wallace Stevens’s Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, students examined a sea shell from different angles and then used similes to describe it in verse. Lesson Note: Perspective and Reality. As […]

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I’M FROM THE CITY LIGHTS / STREAMING OUT IN THE NIGHT / AND HUGE SKYSCRAPERS / TOWERING OVER THE LAKE – MELISSA E., 7TH GRADE POET