Poetry Celebration

Get your tea and biscuits ready. Today, my intern Alissa and I get to visit with our Northfield poets for the last time. It's the third grade Poets Tea.

The children will read their poems for an audience of parents and other visitors. But they also have a chance to travel to other homerooms. There, they will read poems by classmates with whom they don't typically share writing time.

It's often an eye-opening experience for kids. Through poetry, they see a different side of their peers. This is one of my favorite aspects of being a poet-in-residence -- helping the children expand their view of one another as whole people.

Last week, I posted several of the children's persona poems. I saved two more for our celebration. Both of these poems are portraits, but they also have that elusive element... tone.

Hanna's poem reminded me of a poem from A Child's Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

The Swing of Trips 
By Hanna, Grade 3

Up through the air,

she flies in the sky.

She comes over the

grass and comes

back down. She pretends

it’s an airplane

flying and landing

and again fly and

land. Now it’s Florida,

then Wyoming to see

the buffalo. Now

it’s bed till tomorrow.

Where is

she going to

tomorrow?

Hanna captures the flight of the swing, but also how a swing's meditative motion can be a jumping off point for imagination.

Chloe's poem captures a moment. I like how this little poem expresses the happiness we can find in slowing down and appreciating simple things.

Good Thoughts

by Chloe Y., Grade 3

The Happy lady looks out the window.

She thinks what a beautiful day.

Sitting on the bench outside,

Looking up and listening to the birds.

She stands up and picks some flowers,

Then goes inside and gets a vase.

She sniffs the flowers

and thinks good thoughts.

Congratulations, Northfielders. You outdid yourselves with these poems! Thank you for inviting me back again this year. I hope your summers are filled with fun, poet and good thoughts.

Thanks to Kerry at Picture Books and Pirouettes for my Irresistibly Sweet Blog award!