April showers, May flowers, and … Poetry?

Haiku #1

I’d normally spare
You from my poetry but…
It’s poetry month.

I guess one, now painfully obvious, way to celebrate National Poetry Month is…to post poems on a blog! But here are a few more fun and creative ways to promote poetry to kids - or to the ‘child-at-hearts’ – all from Sylvia Vardell’s “Poetry Aloud Here!”

• Start each day with a poem read aloud by a different guest reader: thirty poems for thirty days.
• Set up a coffeehouse-style poetry reading in your classroom or library. (Do not forget the refreshments.)
• Contact local banks and businesses to ask them to consider displaying student poetry on their walls.
• Write poems on postcards or letters and mail them to friends and neighbors.
• Contact radio stations about hosting a live, on-air poetry reading at either the school, the library, or the radio station.
• Record a poem on your answering machine at home or school or as a cell phone message.
• Make a National Poetry Month time capsule. Students can submit favorite poems or their own original writing. Put the works in the time capsule and seal it ceremoniously, not to be opened until National Poetry Month next year.
• Send a poem to your state or local representative or other government official.
• Make National Poetry Month buttons. Inscribe them with haiku, short poems, or favorite lines of poetry. Wear the buttons the whole month of April.
• Become pen pals with another classroom or student group, locally or nationally, and pass favorite and original poems back and forth throughout the month. Make a book of your correspondence.
• Plan a poetry reading for a senior center, hospital, or local business.
• Experiment with developing a poetry blog where students can share favorite poems or respond to posted poems.