Poetry - How To ?

[Ummto4]

What do you do on poetry day ? Read a selection of poem ? Then what ? Discuss it ? Having tea ?

 

I'm struggling with this. Well, I haven't yet tried. But, I'm not a poetry person. Not in my native language (Indonesian), not in English.

 

I can appreciate good literature easily, both in Indonesian and English. Prose, I mean. But not poetry. I just don't like poetry. Now, how important is poetry ?

 

Any suggestion on improving my feelings towards poetry?

Thanks

dian

[WTMindy]

What do you do on poetry day ? Read a selection of poem ? Then what ? Discuss it ? Having tea ?

 

I'm struggling with this. Well, I haven't yet tried. But, I'm not a poetry person. Not in my native language (Indonesian), not in English.

 

I can appreciate good literature easily, both in Indonesian and English. Prose, I mean. But not poetry. I just don't like poetry. Now, how important is poetry ?

 

Any suggestion on improving my feelings towards poetry?

Thanks

dian

We haven't tried much poetry analization yet. We just memorize poetry. Some are fun and goofy and some are a little more serious. I have also familiarized my kids with the types of poetry and some of the elements (they took a poetry class in our co-op). I won't tackle the analization piece until they are older because that can suck some of the life out of poetry.

[Ummto4]

So just read and memorize the poem ?

 

Dian

[Foofy Coffee Lover]

I am not a big poetry person either, but we've done some. We found some books of poems that were kind of funny (eg., Shel Silverstein - but you may want to audit some of them). My son enjoyed memorizing Hungry Mungry just because he thought it was so funny, and he could do some actions to it.

 

I also found an Internet site that described various styles of poems in simple language and gave examples. Then he would try to write one of each of the styles. He actually came up with some very good stuff from that. I cannot find the exact site I used as it was a few years ago, but one that looks similar is http://members.cox.net/berniehpoetry/styles.html. Or you could Google poetry styles and see what you can come up with.

 

My dad also writes a lot of poetry, so we read his as well. He is a member of a poetry club that meets once a month. Perhaps if you know someone who enjoys writing poetry, you could try that route, or maybe you have a local poetry group?

 

I have not delved into forcing a lot in this area. I think if one of my children show real interest, I would go further with it. I may be wrong, but I dont' necessarily see the value of forcing poetry if they do not enjoy it. I do think it is possible to find approaches to make it enjoyable, but they may not get as well-rounded of a poetry experience. :001_huh:

[MIch elle]

in school they give poems that are too hard for the age.

 

I suggest you find some poetry that you LOVE.

 

I bought Poems for Memorization from Rod & Staff and I love most of them because they start at grade 1 and go to grade 10 (I think). I love the simple little poems that rhyme. I've learned to like the longer ones that sing to me.

 

Try Poems Every Child Should Know and pick out a few, print them and then READ them aloud to yourself first and then to your dc. Memorize one if you like or not. We memorize some by reading them aloud everyday for several weeks, repeating the lines until we get one stanza at a time then the whole poem.

 

Deconstructing Penguins talks about how to read, enjoy and analyze poetry.

[5Youngs]

Just read different genres until you find something that you enjoy. There is no point if you don't "feel" it. My 4th and 6th grade sons memorize 1 short poem weekly, we read a few other selections aloud, also. There are several websites that you can access a plethora of poetry on: One is: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display/menupoet.cfm There are several poems that I have come across with cursing, so you may want to pick them out, not you kids! Or try A Family of Poems by Caroline Kennedy. As for a intro to the different types of poetry, try A Child's Introduction to Poetry by Michael Driscoll.

[CactusPair]

Your kids are pretty little. I would just find a fun poetry book at the library and read it aloud. Keep it simple-- no discussing, analyzing and no tea cups. Cookies and milk might be in order, though.:)

 

Mother Goose is still cool for the younger grades. My kids like a book called The Rooster Crows. There's also Sing a Song of Popcorn and the Random House Book of Children's Poetry.

 

Other titles are Winter Poems, Llama in Pajamas (or something like that--can't quite remember the exact title) Poems for the Very Young, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Look into poems by Christina Rossetti

 

Jack Prelutsky (I think that's his name) has wonderful books for kids.

 

Look on amazon for audio sets of of poems for kids.

 

Edward Lear's nonsense poems are good. Kids enjoy a rollicking limerick, too. We have a book called The Hopeful Trout that's a hit.

 

If you want something more grown up, try Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Ogden Nash (he's just fun) D.H. Lawrence (good animal poems) Haiku books, Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williiams.

T.S. Eliot has the cat poems, too. Oh, there's William Blake. John Clare is interesting as is Gerard Manley Hopkins. Theodore Roetke is a possibility.

 

A great anthology is The RattleBag. Preview the books and edit. There's a lot of great stuff for kids and a lot that is not appropriate.

 

We like poetry, especially when it doesn't rhyme.:001_smile:

 

HTH

[Michelle in MO]

used to spend just 5-10 minutes daily memorizing poetry.

 

I would let them pick a poem of their choice, and then I would usually read the poem aloud first. Then we would read it together, usually at least twice. Then they would read it by themselves.

 

Each girl would pick a separate poem, and we would work on this daily for several weeks or a month. Memorization was surprisingly easy! After they had the poem well-memorized, we'd move on to another selection.

 

I have a friend who starts out every day with a Scripture reading and then a poem for her dc.

 

Not to detract from Eliana's very comprehensive list, but we have some resources we've used for the kids at home that I've really liked. We bought them through Barnes & Noble, and the series is called Poetry for Young People. They have a few pages in the front of each book which give a short biography of each poet, and then they choose perhaps 30 or so of the poet's most famous works, along with explanatory notes about vocabulary, some background information, etc.

 

Here's a webpage that shows virtually all of the books in the series. We own the following:

 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Carl Sandburg

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Rudyard Kipling

Lewis Carroll

Emily Dickinson

Robert Frost

William Shakespeare

 

For two years in a row, we hosted at our house a poetry get-together that my husband called "Poetry Roundup and BBQ" (we borrowed that idea from another source!) for our small homeschool group. It was just a fun time for families to get together and for kids and adults alike to share their favorite poems. We didn't require memorization, although some did have their poems memorized. Some kids and adults also brought poetry that they had written.

 

These are just a few ways that we brought poetry into the house and helped the girls learn to enjoy that genre.

[Jen in PA]

My kids are also pretty young, and they both love poetry. We include some every night with our bedtime reading, but we have never tried to analyze it. We all especially love anything by A. A. Milne, R. L. Stevenson, and Lewis Carroll. I prefer to stick with classics, but we do add in some Jack Prelutsky, which they think is very funny. If you check the library, you might be able to find some nicely illustrated anthologies for children.