Poetry is alive and well, no matter how much my students groan. They write the most amazing lines about football, basketball, wrestling, tractors, farming, cheerleading, video gaming, friends, family and even dinner. Poetry should be a short lyrical response to the world, and theirs is.

Some of it is profound and some of it is terrible, but they are writing and writing from who they are. I’m pretty sure I read one yesterday that was none to complimentary toward me, but it was still heartfelt. We tackled “Double, double, boil and trouble…” yesterday and I got some pretty cool stuff:

“To make the crowd move with me, I need thunderous bass and passionate melodies; mind of a franchise and soul of a poor slave; a mic for my heart and a stage for my soul.”

We took a stab at Wordsworth’s ‘To Toussaint’ and many wrote tribute to their mothers, and I like this one: “To Grandpa”

O wonderful teacher, how long will you work-work long hours from sunrise to sunset-in the fields, in the shop, and working with the crops-or fixing stuff, laboring hard, taking short breaks and then teaching me the ways. Showing me how to do, showing me the ways of a farmer. 

We are reciting poetry too, and having conversation about tone so we wrote poems about different words that describe tone so that, together, we could discover meaning. I think the  poems are remarkable. I love poetry. Love it.