Poetry

Inspired by Kenneth Koch's Rose, where did you get that red?  book the older students spent a month studying the poems of Wallace Stevens: Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird, John Ashbery: Into the Dusk-Charged Air, and Arthur Rimbaud:  Voyelles. Kenneth Koch's prompts for children are both motivating and creative. Our final poem was inspired by our study of the Reconstruction period. The children were challenged to write a poem about "Freedom." 

The River by Andy Zamora

As the river throbs on hitting rocks, and flowing over white with foam,

No one knows the name,

No one really cares,

Tuck between the evergreens, far from any city, any means of civilization,

Only deer and elk come to its waiting shores,

Lost to the wilderness,

The unknown river throbs on,

The wolf trots in the edge waters fallowing it prey,

With the moon glistening above,

Like a thousand stars in one,

In the day the sun beat down, as the animals emerged from the pine and Burch,

and wade in it cooling waters,

and the unknown river throbs on.  

Vowels by Zerbie Hynson

A feels like Tuscan red, like the slash of a laser sword, like leaping the tallest building in a single bound.

E feels like a crescent moon, like a very bright, light yellow, like a purple roly-poly elephant.

I feels like light green, like a leaf blowing in the wind, light shining through it like a stained-glass window.  It feels like the way the buttons on an arcade game click when you press them.

O feels like black, like a rocket blasting off into space, into the stars.

U feels like an assortment of bright, vibrant colors set against a dark background, like a skateboard half-pipe, like a yo-yo or a spinning top.

Different ways to look at a book by Sam Pullman

A book

A book is like a world

unfolding before your eyes

a book is like

a being

explaining itself.

A book is like the only diamond

in the

modern world.

A privilege is a book

no book can be

a punishment

A book is a magnet

drawing

drawing

Freedom by Bobby Simmons

Freedom

Animals have the freedom

To be released into the

Lush forest, green meadows

Tan fields, rocky mountains

Sandy beaches, and blue waters

They have the right to be

In the night sky, the Sandy wastelands, and the dead trees.

Animals have the right to survive

In whatever environment they need.

Six ways to write a poem by Emmy Newman

The moon rises like a silver ball.

The cat pounces on the

ball of yarn they roll

and roll and roll away

the dolphin drifts to the sky

and lands lightly back in

the water

the river slides along the

valley like a blue snake

The fluffy cloud gets

Brown across the sky

A tree stands like a

Tall man with green hair.