Agora Vitals with Dr. Butler
April 2024
April is National Poetry Month! The Academy of American Poets initiated the first-ever National Poetry Month in 1996; since then it has become “the largest literary celebration in the world” according to the Academy of American Poets.
In my classroom, I encouraged my students to think about poetry as the greatest amount of meaning in the fewest number of words. While there are certainly very, very long poems, the point remained – authors choose words, arrangement, punctuation, and even capitalization deliberately in order to get their message across to readers. Often, that means that readers can return to poems again and again, finding something different in each new reading!
Your child will experience poetry through the guiding hands of our teaching staff, but I encourage you to continue the celebration of National Poetry Month at home. One quick and easy way to do that is by subscribing to Poem-a-Day, which delivers a new poem to your email inbox every morning. Here’s the link: https://poets.org/poem-a-day
If you have a younger child, or if you’re looking for poems that feel more comfortable or approachable, check out Poems for Kids. This site houses collections grouped by theme, but my favorite collection is simply titled “Poems Kids Like.” Find it here: https://poets.org/poems-kids.
Finally, and most importantly, I encourage you to spread the message that poetry doesn’t have to be “stuffy” or even “intellectual.” Shel Silverstein is a great example of this. I’ll leave you with his poem, “Sick”.
Happy National Poetry Month!
Sick
"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more—that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke—
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"
From Shel Silverstein: Poems and Drawings; originally appeared in Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. Copyright © 2003 by HarperCollins Children's Books. Reprinted by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.