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Ode to a Commode has 71 ratings and 30 reviews. December said: I really enjoyed that the poetry in this was funny and would be great for kids. Students t...

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LESSON PLANS
Thirty Poets in Thirty Days
As the principal poet in your school, take a look at Thirty Poets/Thirty Days, a free online event in April that spotlights never-before-seen poems from popular poets.
Calling on the Muse: Exercises to Unlock the Poet Within
I think that I shall never see ... well-disciplined creativity! Don't despair! The experts -- working poets who teach their craft -- share their secrets for instructing and inspiring budding poets. Included: Exercises to help students access their creative powers.

TEACHER-SUBMITTED LESSON PLANS

MORE POETRY ACTIVITIES AND PROJECTS

POETRY ARTICLES AND RESOURCES

Voice of Experience: Poetry Writing: A Comprehension Tool Across the Curriculum
Educator Max Fischer's most recent Aha! moment came when he let students use poetry to demonstrate their comprehension of the history curriculum. Now Fischer has one more tool for engaging students, one more tool for his growing "bag of tricks."

Updated: 4/01/2015

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Everything You Need to Celebrate Poetry Month | Education World

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LESSON PLANS Thirty Poets in Thirty Days As the principal poet in your school, take a look at Thirty Poets/Thirty Days, a free online event in April that spotlights never-before-seen poems from popular poets.Calling on the Muse: Exercises to Unlock the Poet Within I think that I shall never see ...

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Theme Poems: Using the Five Senses - ReadWriteThink

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Students write theme poems in a flash using the picture book Flicker Flash by Joan Bransfield Graham and the online, interactive Theme Poems tool.

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Poetry resources for parents, including poems and videos for children ages 0-12.

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Ogden Nash

Adam
Had'em

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Walter Dean Myers

Love that boy,
like a rabbit loves to run
I said I love that boy
like a rabbit loves to run
Love to call him in the morning
love to call him
'Hey there, son!'

He walk like his Grandpa,
Grins like his Uncle Ben.
I said he walk like his Grandpa,
And grins like his Uncle Ben.
Grins when he's happy,
When he sad, he grins again.

His mama like to hold him,
Like to feed him cherry pie.
I said his mama like to hold him.
Like to feed him that cherry pie.
She can have him now,
I'll get him by and by

He got long roads to walk down
Before the setting sun.
I said he got a long, long road to walk down
Before the setting sun.
He'll be a long stride walker,
And a good man before he done.

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Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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By Cheryl Trowbridge

Tunnel books are fun and unique! We made ours using a post card for a prompt and wrote a haiku to go with it. I've made these with grade 4 and up, but younger students could enjoy this activity in "centers", with the help of parent volunteers, or by having the various parts prepped for them ahead of time.

There are lots of different directions you could take this project. We added a pocket on the back for holding a written story that we added later. For a convenient pdf of this lesson, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers Store!

Materials (per student):

1 - 4×6 post card (a single, horizontal scene from nature is best for traditional Japanese haiku)

*4 - 4×6 index cards (white)

*4 - 4×6 index cards (white), each pre-cut into two 3"x4" pieces

(3 extra 4×6 index cards, white, if you want to add a pocket in the back)

1 - 3×5 index card, cut to 2 ½"x4 ½" (a color other than white if possible, to use as a template for tracing the opening)

scissors

glue stick

pencil and eraser

lined paper for writing haiku

black UF Sharpie

colored pencils

(*Each "page" of your tunnel book will require two - 4×6 cards. These instructions are for the four "page" book shown.)

3. Pass out post cards and have students write a nature-themed haiku to go with their postcard. The first line (5 syllables) introduces their subject, the 2nd line (7 syllables) continues describing it, and the 3rd line (5 syllables) completes the idea. 6. Cut away the center section of each page, cutting around any elements that extend into the middle. 7. Assemble your tunnel book, Directions: Haiku:
1. Begin by reading a few haiku poems to your students, so they get the feel for the structure of the verse. Choose haiku that focus on nature as a theme, as you find in traditional Japanese haiku. Explain that a haiku does not need to rhyme. Titles are optional.
2. Show how each of the 3 lines has a specific number of syllables (5,7,5). Practice by clapping out the syllables in the haiku you just read.
Tunnel Book: (A "What Am I?" haiku is fun for kids.... the student uses the haiku to describe something in the picture without naming it, somewhat like a riddle.)
1. First, make the hinged sides of your book by folding each of your 3"x4" index cards accordion style: fold in half lengthwise ("mountain fold"), then fold each loose edge up ("valley fold") to line up with the fold in the middle.
2. Next, put a little glue along the inside edge of two of your hinges, and place them on the left and right sides of the back of your post card. Repeat this step for each 4×6 card.
3. Then, center your 2 ½" x 4 ½" card on each of the 4×6 cards and trace around it. These will be your pages and your "cover".
4. Write one line of your haiku across the top of each of 3 cards, and your title (if you want one) across the other. Trace with Sharpie.
5. Now, illustrate each page of your book by choosing elements from the post card and repeating them on the edges of each page. Keep most of your design along the top, bottom and sides, but allow some elements to overlap into the center section. (Remember that objects closer to you will appear larger than those farther away. Outline your drawing with Sharpie and color with colored pencils.)
)
Optional pocket:
8. Use one of your extra 4×6 cards to make a pair of hinges, like you did in step 1, above.(By pinching the middle of each page, without creasing to the edges, you can snip into the center to create an opening for your scissors.
9. Glue the hinges to the front of a 4×6 card.
working from the back (line 3 of your haiku) to the front, gluing the back of each hinged page to the hinges behind it. 10. Fold the last 4×6 card in half width-wise and glue one half to the front of the 4×6 card.
Glue the other half to the back of your postcard.
11. Finally, glue the front of the hinges to the back of the post card to complete your pocket. 12. Now, write a story, fold it up, and put it in the pocket!

Filed Under: Tagged With: Bookmaking, bookmaking, colored pencil Colored Pencil, Drawing, Lessons

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Tunnel books are fun and unique! We made ours using a post card for a prompt and wrote a haiku to go with it. I've made these with grade 4 and up, but younger students could enjoy this activity in "centers", with the help of parent volunteers, or by having the various parts prepped for ...

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Random Word Poems and Weather Poems

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By · Disclosure: This Post May Contain Affiliate Links. {I may be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.}
The following is a post from contributing writer Sarah Small of SmallWorld at Home. National Poetry Month is right around the corner!
Since 1996, April has been designated as National Poetry Month by the Academy of American Poets. It is a time to for people everywhere to celebrate poetry and its vital place in our culture. So what can you do in your family?

First and foremost, read poetry! Check out my article Reading Poetry with Children here on Real Life at Home for an abundance of links and ideas for sharing poetry with your children.

Poets.org has a list of 30 Ways to Celebrate Poetry, ranging from "put a poem on the pavement" to "write a letter to a poet."

Perhaps my favorite way to help kids fall in love with poetry is to integrate poetry with hands-on projects. Below are several projects-ones that I have used both with my own children and in my creative writing classes- that are almost guaranteed to generate excitement about poetry!

1. Poetry Pictures

I got this idea originally from the Making Books Blog. Start with a basic theme: animals, love, etc. My kids and I started with a basic theme of "spring" and started plowing through poetry books. We all read aloud whatever poems appealed to us, and then we picked a poem each to make into a picture. We all came up with very different ideas. My son picked a poem about onions and made his picture "scratch and sniff" using wild onions from our yard!

2. Poems on Flowers

For this, I drew simple outlines of flowers on plain paper. You should start by brainstorming together about flowers and spring, spring colors, types of flowers, etc. On one flower, have your student write something with alliteration about spring or flowers. With the other flower write a simile about spring or about a flower in each petal. Do haiku or just a poetic phrase in the middle. Encourage the kids to take off with their own creativity. They can even write adjectives or snippets of poetry on the stems or make clouds in the sky and use alliteration, etc. The possibilities are endless! (You can also do this with a fall leaves or winter snowflakes theme.)

3. Poetry Collages

I have a detailed post here on Real Life at Home about making poetry collages. These are tons of fun and beautiful! We still have some hanging on the bulletin board that we made several years ago.

4. Make a Rainbow

This is one of my favorites. You can see all the details on my WordSmithery Creative Writing Lessons. It's fun to use most of the colors of crayons or markers. And if kids really balk at making rainbows (trust me: this sometimes happens with 12-year-old boys), you can have them make a different shape, like ocean waves or a snake.

5. Accordion Books

These are fun little books featuring diamante poems, although any kind of form poetry would work nicely.

6. Newspaper Blackout Poems:

The basic idea is to find a newspaper article, circle promising words, cross out others, and then eventually come up with a poem. You can read more about this technique at Newspaper Blackout. Read our newspaper blackout poem about music final product!

7. Synonym Strips

This is a colorful and useful addition to your school room! Collect a bunch of paint color strips in a home improvement store. Label each one with overused words, such as nice, pretty, and awesome. Challenge your students to find a whole list of synonyms for each word. When done, fasten them to a piece of cardstock or poster board in the shape of a flower or sun or whatever shape you wish. Individually, these make great bookmarks, too!

8. Ripped Words Poem

This is a great way to capture a poem. Have your student find a poem he really enjoys. Instruct him to select a favorite phrase or two. Copy this into a font on the computer that "matches" the tone of the poem. Paint or color a sheet of paper, again in colors that match the poem. (Matching is highly subjective, of course!) Gently rip the poem into separate words and glue on the paper.

Here's my poetry challenge to you: pick a project for each week of April, gather your supplies, and have some fun with poetry!
This post was originally published on March 21, 2012, and was updated in March 2016.
Other Posts You'll Love:

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Celebrating National Poetry Month with Hands-on Poetry Projects

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The following is a post from contributing writer Sarah Small of SmallWorld at Home. National Poetry Month is right around the corner! Since 1996, April has been designated as National Poetry Month by the Academy of American Poets. It is a time to for people everywhere to celebrate poetry and its vital place in our culture.

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Book of poems and origami activities. Author-created guides on her website.

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**The posts I write might contain affiliate links or be written in collaboration with businesses or brands. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.**
The boy sat so quietly in the back of the room with a stack of colored paper, his fingers were nearly flying as he folded sheet after sheet of colorful origami paper into fanciful animals. O nce he'd folded a zoo's worth of animals, I watched him play with them, talk to them and give them quirky personalities. His paper animals seemed almost real and I found myself thinking that while an adult may create art for art's sake, children extend their art into their own lives through imaginative play.

Fold Me a Poem is an absolutely wonderful book by Kristine O'Connell that brings poetry to life through the art of paper folding or Origami. Kristine offers tips and even a downloadable Teachers Guide for Origami folding on her website. Have fun folding some animals of your own and then be sure to share them on our Facebook Page and even on Pinterest as well.

The story F old Me a Poem includes 32 brief poems that focus on a boy as he folds a series of origami animals. As he creates, he imagines their thoughts and possible activities. Fold Me a Poem is a wonderful example of a book being more than the sum of its parts. Inside the covers of this stunning creation, the poems and illustrations blend to create a picture book that is both inspiring and entertaining.

When I was reading Kristine's bio and info on her website, I was struck by her comments about the first time she saw illustrator Lauren Stringer's renderings for the Fold Me a Poem book. Here's an excerpt;

I was startled when I first saw the Lauren Stringer's sketches for FOLD ME A POEM: She had painted what was inside my head! I've never met Lauren and we didn't communicate while she was working on the book. So, how did she know that I'd visualized the camel leaning against the salt shaker? Spooky! Most importantly, Lauren clearly saw that this book was not only about origami, but was also an exploration of a child's joy in creating art and weaving that art into a deeply personal, imaginative world. I love Lauren Stringer's evocative art; the Internet doesn't do justice to the gorgeous full-page spreads and her vibrant colors!

This observation from Kristine makes me smile because it is SO similar to my working relationship with The Fox Diaries and now The Ultimate Guide to Charlie graphic designer and co-creator Roscoe Welply. Though Roscoe and I always were in contact during The Ultimate Guide to Charlie, we live an ocean apart. I always delighted in "reveal days" when he would send me his creations for "Charlie." I often joke that if if Roscoe and I went to the same building every day to create this book, we would have something entirely different. One of the best aspects of creating virtually is space. We have that in many ways. We live in different parts of the world. I'm here in the States and Roscoe lives in France, but somehow, we always remain "in tune" with each other.

Something To Do:

Time to create some of your own Origami characters! When doing origami with children I love to use 12 x 12 scrapbooking paper. It's large enough to let little hands figure out all of the folding on a larger surface. Once they learn it they usually like to work on smaller paper. Enjoy!

Here Kitty, Kitty:

Start with a 12″x12″ piece of square paper.

Fold it corner to corner,color side out to make a triangle.

Fold the left corner to the right corner to make a smaller triangle

Now unfold the triangle so it lays flat again. This is your center line

Fold each side corner upwards to make the ears.

Fold the top corner down towards you.

Flip the cat over and draw eyes, ear, nose and mouth.

A Whale of a Tale:

Start with a 12″x12″ piece of square paper. Pattern side down.

Turn paper so a corner is at the top and the bottom.

Fold the right corner to the left corner to make a triangle.

Open it back up.

Fold the left and right sides to meet the crease in the center.

Fold the top tip down to meet the folded sides.

Fold the entire whale in half.

Rotate it 90 degrees so that the tip is on the left.

Fold the point of the whale up to make the tail.

Turn it over and here's your whale. Feel free to draw a face.

Happy folding!

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Fold Me a Poem by Kristine O'Connell - Origami Activities for Kids - Jump Into A Book

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The posts I write might contain affiliate links or be written in collaboration with businesses or brands. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.** The boy sat so quietly in the back of the room with a stack of colored paper, his fingers were nearly flying as he folded sheet after sheet of colorful origami paper into fanciful animals.

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Poem in Your Pocket Day 2016 will be held on April 21. Resource on website includes poems for children.

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Every April, on Poem in Your Pocket Day, people celebrate by selecting a poem, carrying it with them, and sharing it with others throughout the day at schools, bookstores, libraries, parks, workplaces, and on social media using the hashtag #pocketpoem. In 2008, the Academy of American Poets made the initiative national, encouraging individuals across the country to participate.

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I'm FINALLY getting around to posting about the fun poetry month activities I did at the end of last year! I think I've mentioned poetry has always been something I tended to avoid because I wasn't very comfortable with it. I was inspired to give Poetry Month a shot after seeing a lot of fun-looking poetry activities on Pinterest and by other library teachers (especially Jennifer Reed!).

One poetry activity I was looking forward to trying out all year was LEGO poetry.

I used this as a center with K-4 and it was a hit! Many teachers even got in on the action!

It was very interesting watching how students built their poems. Some kids created poems that read from the top down, some from the bottom up, and some from side to side. I was very confused by this second grader's poem until he read it to me: A book will yell at a boy. The baby will tell the mother."

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I'm FINALLY getting around to posting about the fun poetry month activities I did at the end of last year! I think I've mentioned poetry has always been something I tended to avoid because I wasn't very comfortable with it.

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I started on my homework,
but my pen ran out of ink…
My hamster ate my homework…
My computer's on the blink…

I tripped and dropped my homework
in the soup my mom was cooking…
My brother flushed it down the toilet
when I wasn't looking…

My mother ran my homework
through the washer and the dryer…
An airplane crashed into our house…
My homework caught on fire…

Tornadoes blew my notes away…
Volcanoes rocked our town…
My books were taken hostage
by an evil killer clown…

Some aliens abducted me…
I had a shark attack…
A pirate swiped my homework
and refused to give it back…

I worked on these excuses
so darned long my teacher said,
"I think you'll find it's easier
to do the work instead."

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National Poetry Month 2016 Poster

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'Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too' by Shel Silverstein

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'Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too' by Shel Silverstein

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Shel Silverstein: 'Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too' from Where the Sidewalk Ends

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A journal is a place to express yourself, to record your thoughts, feelings and observations, and to cultivate your poetic style. The cool thing about your journal is that it's yours. You can keep it secret or share it with your friends and family. You might even read some of your poetry out loud at a talent show or poetry jam. Whatever you decide to do with it, a daily poetry journal will keep you writing. And the more you write, the better writer you become!

Step One: Choose a journal that fits your style

Do you like to draw pictures and doodle around your poetry? If so, you might want a book with blank pages. Do you need help keeping your words in order? Then try a journal with lines, such as a spiral-bound notebook. If you write all day long whenever inspiration strikes, use a smaller book with a hard cover that you can tuck into your backpack, purse, or pocket.

Step Two: Organize your journal

While this is an important step, it will be different for everyone. You can divide your journal in several different ways:

Emotions: Joy, Anger, Sorrow, Humility, Pride

Seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall (add the different holidays within each season.)

Chronological: Just write the date at the top of the page.

Poetic Form: Acrostic, Cinquain, Clerihew, Diamante, Haiku, Limerick, Free Verse, etc.

Subject: Sports, Humor, Dance, Friends, Nature, School

Once you've decided how to organize your journal, use a paper clip, divider, sticky note, or colored tape to divide your sections. (You do not need to do this for a chronological journal.)

Step Three: Write!

Jot down interesting words, phrases, sentences, or feelings on the page before starting your poem. This provides a jumping-off point for your thoughts.

For example, today I heard someone say, "I can't be late for the bus!" So, I wrote that sentence on the top of a page in my "School" section.

Then, decide what type of poem you want to write. For this one, I selected free verse.

Finally, use some of the words on your page to write your poem.

Bus Stop
My heart beats
so fast.

The puddles are lakes,
my homework... wet.

The clock ticks
faster than my feet
can run.

I shout to the driver,
"Stop!"

Wheels slow.
Take a breath.

I can't be late for the bus.

Step Four: Keep it up!

It's important to write in your journal on a regular basis. Finding a routine can help with that. Maybe you have quiet time at night before bed, when you're riding on the bus, or at lunch break. Make it a part of your day, and soon you'll have an entire journal full of incredible poetry!

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How to Start a Poetry Journal - Kenn Nesbitt's Poetry4kids.com

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A journal is a place to express yourself, to record your thoughts, feelings and observations, and to cultivate your poetic style. The cool thing about your journal is that it's yours. You can keep it secret or share it with your friends and family.

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English professor John Keating inspires his students to a love of poetry and to seize the day.

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Directed by Peter Weir. With Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles. English teacher John Keating inspires his students to look at poetry with a different perspective of authentic knowledge and feelings.

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Browse this list of poetic terms, including literary devices, poetic forms and techniques, and schools and movements.

Many of these brief definitions link to a longer page including a more detailed definition, example poems, related essays, and other resources. Many of these definitions are reprinted from Edward Hirsch's A Poet's Glossary.

Abecedarian: a form guided by alphabetical order in which each line or stanza begins with a successive letter of the alphabet.

Acrostic: a form in which names or words are spelled out through the first letter of each line.

Aisling: an Irish dream poem in which Ireland appears to the poet personified as a woman.

Alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginnings of words.

Allusion: a reference to a person, event, or literary work outside the poem.

Anapest: a metrical foot containing three syllables, the first two of which are unstressed and the last of which is stressed.

Anaphora: a technique in which successive phrases or lines begin with the same words, often resembling a litany.

Annotation: the close analysis of a poem or text through written notes and comments.

Anthropomorphism: the attribution of human traits, actions, or emotions to an animal, object, or other nonhuman figure.

Apostrophe: a direct address of an inanimate object, abstract qualities, a god, or a person not living or present.

Ars Poetica: a poem about poetry, examining the role of poets, poets' relationships to the poem, and the act of writing.

Assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds.

Aubade: a dawn song that greets the morning while lamenting the end of the night, often concerning the parting of lovers.

Ballad: a plot-driven song with one or more characters and often constructed in quatrain stanzas.

Ballade: a form popular in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France that contains three main stanzas and a shorter concluding envoi.

Bhakti Poetry: a form that began in India in the sixth century and traditionally celebrates love for and devotion to specific Hindi gods.

Bird Song: an important influence on poets and poetry recurring across cultures and eras.

Blank Verse: poetry that does not rhyme but follows a regular meter, most commonly iambic pentameter.

Blues Poem: a form that stems from the African American oral tradition and the musical tradition of the blues.

Bop: a recently invented form of poetic argument consisting of three stanzas, each stanza followed by a repeated line or refrain.

Caesura: a pause for a beat in the rhythm of a verse, often indicated by a line break or by punctuation.

Cento: a form also known as a collage poem and composed entirely of lines from poems by other poets.

Chance Operations: methods of generating poetry independent of the author's will to create unusual syntax and images.

Cinquain: a poem or stanza, also known as a quintain or quintet, composed of five lines.

Closed Form: a poetic form subject to a fixed structure and pattern; the opposite of open form.

Concrete Poetry: apoem that is as much a piece of visual art made with words as it is a work of poetry.

Connotation: the implied or suggested meaning associated with a word or phrase.

Consonance: the repetition of similar consonant sounds.

Couplet: two successive lines of poetry, often rhymed.

Dactyl: a metrical foot containing three syllables, the first stressed and the following two unstressed.

Denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word.

Doha: a form in Hindi and Urdu verse that consists of rhyming couplets made up of twenty-four syllables each.

Elegy: a form of poetry in which the poet or speaker expresses grief, sadness, or loss.

Elision: the omission, usually via apostrophe, of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry.

Elliptical Poetry: poetry that is oblique and without prosaic information or a logical sequence of meaning.

End-Stop: the use of terminal punctuation such as a period, colon, or semicolon at the end of a poetic line; the opposite of enjambment.

Enjambment: the continuation of a phrase or sentence from one line to another without an end-stop.

Epic: a long, often book-length, narrative in verse form that retells the heroic journey of a single person, or group of persons.

Epigram: a short, pithy saying, usually in verse, often with a quick, satirical twist at the end.

Epistolary Poem: also known as an epistle, a poem of direct address that reads as a letter.

Erasure: a form of found poetry wherein a poet takes an existing text and erases, blacks out, or otherwise obscures a large portion of the text, creating a wholly new work from what remains.

Exquisite Corpse: a collaborative poetry game that traces its roots to the Parisian Surrealist Movement.

Falling Meter: meter containing metrical feet that move from stressed to unstressed syllables; the opposite of rising meter.

Figurative Meaning: the associative or connotative meaning of a word, phrase, or poem.

Filídh: a historic rank of Irish poet who practiced an elaborate oral tradition and were known for their mysticism.

Found Poem: a collage-like form consisting entirely of language taken from outside texts.

Fragment: a part of a larger work, or a poem made to appear discontinuous or incomplete.

Free Verse: poetry not dictated by an established form or meter and often influenced by the rhythms of speech.

Futurism: an avant-garde movement in early twentieth-century arts and literature that emphasized technology, speed, and movement.

Ghazal: a form with its roots in seventh-century Arabia that is composed of five to fifteen structurally and thematically autonomous couplets.

Haiku: a form that originated in Japan, is traditionally composed of three lines with seventeen syllables, written in a 5/7/5 syllable count, and often focuses on images from nature.

Hudibrastic Verse: a narrative, humorous form related to the mock epic and consisting of eight-syllable lines and rhyming couplets.

Hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis.

Iamb: a metrical foot containing two syllables, the first of which is unstressed and the latter of which is stressed.

Iambic Pentameter: a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet, or ten syllables.

Imagery: language in a poem representing a sensory experience, including visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory).

Incantation: a chant or formulaic use of words invoking or suggesting magic or ritual.

Irony: a rhetorical device involving contradictions of expectation or knowledge and divided into three primary types: verbal, situational, and dramatic.

Lament: a poem or song expressing personal loss and grief.

Limerick: an often comical or nonsensical form composed of five lines and popular in children's literature.

Line: a fundamental unit in verse, carrying meaning both horizontally across the page and vertically from one line to the next.

Literal Meaning: the simplest and most obvious meaning of a word, phrase, or poem based on denotation and not connotation.

Lullaby: a song or folk poem meant to help a child fall asleep.

Lyric Poetry: a non-narrative poem, often with songlike qualities, that expresses the speaker's personal emotions and feelings.

Metaphor: a comparison between essentially unlike things, or the application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable.

Meter: the measured pattern of rhythmic accents in a line of verse.

Metonymy: a word or phrase that replaces the name of an object or concept for another to which it is related.

Naked Poetry: free-verse poetry written without a set form and stripped of any artifice or ornament.

Nature Poetry: poetry that engages with, describes, or considers the natural world.

Negative Capability: a phrase coined by John Keats to describe the poet's ability to live with uncertainty and mystery.

Nocturne: a poem set at night.

Ode: a lyric address to an event, a person, or a thing not present.

Onomatopoeia: the use of language that sounds like the thing or action it describes.

Open Form: a poetic form free from regularity and consistency in elements such as rhyme, line length, and form; the opposite of closed form.

Oral-Formulaic Method: a formula of repetition used by oral epic singers to allow for more fluent composition and memorization.

Organic Form: a form that is dictated by its specific content and not by a mechanic or pre-determined system.

Oríkì: the oral praise poetry of the indigenous Yórùbá communities of Western Africa.

Oxymoron: a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other.

Paradox: a situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but that also contains some measure of truth.

Pastoral: referring to a creative tradition as well as individual work idealizing rural life and landscapes.

Persona Poem: a poem also known as a dramatic monologue in which the poet assumes the voice of another person, fictional character, or identity.

Personification: the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.

Poetic Contest: a verbal duel in which two or more contestants face off in a verse-based exchange.

Poetic Diction: the language, including word choice and syntax, that sets poetry apart from other forms of writing.

Poetry: a form of writing vital to culture, art, and life.

Political Poetry: poetry that is related to activism, protest, and social concern, or that is commenting on social, political, or current events.

Prose Poem: a poem that lacks the line breaks traditionally associated with poetry.

Proverb: a short statement or saying that expresses a basic truth.

Pun: a play on words or the humorous use of a single sound or word with two or more implied meanings.

Quatrain: a four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse.

Renga: a form consisting of alternating tercets and couplets written by multiple collaborating poets.

Repetition: the poetic technique of repeating the same word or phrase multiple times within a poem or work.

Rhyme: the correspondence of sounds in words or lines of verse.

Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhymes falling at the ends of a poem's lines.

Riddle: a short poetic form with roots in the oral tradition that poses a question or metaphor.

Rising Meter: meter containing metrical feet that move from unstressed to stressed syllables; the opposite of falling meter.

Rondeau: a traditionally French form composed of a rhyming quintet, quatrain, and sestet.

Sapphic: a form dating back to ancient Greece made up of metered, four-line stanzas.

Saudade: a Portuguese term expressing nostalgia or yearning for something that might have been.

Scansion: the process of determining the meter of a poem or a line of verse.

Sestina: a complex, thirty-nine-line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end-words in six stanzas and an envoi.

Simile: a comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as like and as.

Slant Rhyme: a rhyme formed with words with similar but not wholly identical sounds; also called an off rhyme, half rhyme, and imperfect rhyme.

Sonnet: a fourteen-line poem traditionally written in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes, and adhering to a tightly structured thematic organization.

Spondee: a less common metrical foot in which two consecutive syllables are stressed.

Stanza: a grouping of lines that forms the main unit in a poem.

Stress: the term describing when a greater amount of force is used to pronounce one syllable over an adjacent, unstressed syllable.

Surrealism: a 1920s artistic movement celebrating imagination over realism and, more broadly, to the incorporation of fantasy and strangeness in poetry and art.

Syllable: a unit of pronunciation in speech.

Symbol: an object or action that stands for something beyond itself.

Synechdoche: a word for part of an object or idea used as a substitution to describe the whole.

Synesthesia: an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another.

Tanka: a thirty-one-syllable poem, Japanese in origin, that is traditionally written in a single unbroken line but is better known in its five-line form.

Terza Rima: a form invented in fourteenth-century Italy that is composed of tercets woven into a complex rhyme scheme.

Tlamatine: a Náhuatl word for "the one who knows" referring to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Aztec poets.

Translation: the art of transferring a poem's meaning from one language to another.

Triolet: an eight-line poem, French in origin, with only two rhymes used throughout.

Trochee: a metrical foot containing two syllables, the first of which is stressed and the second of which is unstressed.

Verbless Poetry: poetry written without the use of verbs.

Verse Novel: a hybrid form in which a narrative with structural and stylistic similarities to a traditional novel is told through poetry.

Villanelle: a highly structured poem made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain, with two repeating rhymes and two refrains.

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Browse this list of poetic terms, including literary devices, poetic forms and techniques, and schools and movements. Many of these brief definitions link to a longer page including a more detailed definition, example poems, related essays, and other resources. Many of these definitions are reprinted from Edward Hirsch's A Poet's Glossary.

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Jack Prelutsky, 1940

Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.

Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you’d be forced to smell your feet.

Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
it soon would drive you to despair,
forever tickled by your hair.

Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,
your brain would rattle from the breeze.

Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,
not pasted on some other place--
be glad your nose is on your face!

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The fire within
My father's dragon
Totally irresponsible science
Let's pretend this never happened
Poetry speaks to the soul. It's job is to create images, feelings, meaning in an otherwise meaningless world. And for kids, the best part is that you don't even have to write in complete sentences. How great is that?

But behind the silliness of this introduction lies a serious truth: Poetry is a powerful tool for both expression and learning. It requires kids to be resourceful, creative, clever and engage in some pretty fancy verbal calisthenics.

For this Adventure in Learning, kids are going to use found words to create their very own Book Spine Poetry.

But first, a little background...

The Birth of Book Spine Poetry

Book Spine Poetry is an internet meme that goes back to the work of artist Nina Katchadourian. In the early 1990s, she took photographs of stacked book titles that, when read together, created short sentences and stories.

More than decade later, the internet was in full swing and Katchadourian's work inspired a viral revolution with its own hashtag, #bookspinepoetry. The meme is still going strong after more than five years. That's an internet legacy.

The Set Up

The set up for this is straightforward. All you need is a stack of books from around the house or your local library.

Have the kids read through the titles.

Encourage them to stack a few books on top of each other. Have them play around with the titles to create a short poem; words that create an image, feeling or scene.

Some kids may take this project and run with it. Others may need a bit of encouragement to get started. For kids who need a little nudge, it might help them to approach this activity as a puzzle. Can they stack titles that build a sentence? How about a phrase? How about just two books that sound funny together?

The girl who could fly
Around the world in 80 days
Don't forget to write
After they've created something they're happy with, have the kids record their work for posterity. They can write it down in a journal, or snap a photo, just like artist Nina Katchadourian did! If you do take a picture, share it on our PBS Parents facebook page or tweet it to us. We'd love to see your works of literary art!

More Adventures in Learning

Cut and Paste Sight Words
[Video] Writer's Club: It's Play Time
27 Beloved Rhyming Books for Kids

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Book Spine Poetry - Adventures in Learning

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The fire within My father's dragon Totally irresponsible science Let's pretend this never happened Poetry speaks to the soul. It's job is to create images, feelings, meaning in an otherwise meaningless world. And for kids, the best part is that you don't even have to write in complete sentences.