Poetry Appreciation and Prompt

I am a HUGE fan of poetry; mostly because of the flexibility in writing that it allows.  Often the “rules” of writing are allowed to be broken and a rhythmic piece is created to express emotion, humour, or simply state some facts. Therefore, if you are not a particularly gifted writer, you can still create an impressive poem.  Often students who struggle with sentence structure or grammatical rules excel in writing poetry.  In the video below, children’s author Liz Garton Scanlon, discusses poetry, reads a poem and introduces a writing prompt for an Etheree poem.

Although Scanlon’s poem is very structured, it is possible to write in free verse and without much concern for punctuation, grammar or capitalization!  For something a little more unstructured (and funny) check out Shel Silverstein’s site.

There are also a number of poems available through the many digital book sites available for free right now, including Tumblebooks and EpicVooks also has a lovely picture book about the poet Robert Frost, called Papa is a Poet by Natalie S. Bober, illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon.