Book Spine Poetry

April is National Poetry Month. There is only one week left!

National Poetry Month, which takes place each April, is a celebration of poetry introduced in 1996 and organized by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. The Academy of American Poets’ website Poets.org serves as a hub for information about local poetry events during the month. The organization also provides free educational resources to teachers for classroom celebrations.

National Poetry Writing Month encourages writing a poem a day in celebration.

In honor of National Poetry Month, introduce your students to a variety of poetic forms. Assign one or two students each day as “poet of the day” for the month of April. Then provide students with several models for creating different forms of poetry. You might use Theme Poems, Acrostic Poems, Diamante Poems, or Instant Poetry Forms to do this.

Have each student select one form of poetry and write an original poem, which he or she can also illustrate. On their assigned days, have students read their poetry out loud to the class.

Get your poetry juices flowing with the Poetry Idea Engine. Created with GoCyberCamp, this activity will allow you to write haikus, free verse, limericks, and more! The Poetry Engine fuels your imagination for writing poetry. Choose from several types of poetry and learn how to create a haiku, limerick and more.

Listen to the nation’s first Children’s Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky, reads Louder Than a Clap of Thunder.

Louder than a clap of thunder,
louder than an eagle screams,
louder than a dragon blunders,
or a dozen football teams,
louder than a four alarmer,
or a rushing waterfall,
louder than a knight in armor
jumping from a ten-foot wall.
Louder than an earthquake rumbles,
louder than a tidal wave,
louder than an ogre grumbles
as he stumbles through his cave,
louder than stampeding cattle,
louder than a cannon roars,
louder than a giant’s rattle,
that’s how loud my father SNORES!

Click here to follow the prompts as Jack Prelutsky lead students through writing and publishing their own original poem.

Create “Book Spine” Poetry

Arrange book titles to make a poem. Just like regular poetry, you can create a poem that is serious or funny.

To make a “Book Spine” poem you start by moving books around with their spines together so that the titles are like lines of a poem. You keep moving the books around into different stacks until you find lines that best go together to create a poem.

Have Kindergarten students use a controlled group of titles such as:

Green Eggs and Ham
Waiting is Not Easy
Goodnight Moon
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
Oh, The Places You’ll Go
Where the Wild Things Are
Good Night, Gorilla
Stone Soup
Press Here
I Wish You More

One poem might read something like this:

Press Here
I Wish You More
Waiting is Not Easy

Older Students

Walk around the library with a partner looking for 3-4 interesting book titles. Write down the titles you think are the best ones. As you write them down you might seem to notice that some go together to tell a funny or interesting story. Once you have the titles selected it is time to take the titles off the shelves and stack them on the table. Be sure to use the recycled strips of paper to mark the shelves. Write your name on the paper so we can tell who ad where the books should be returned.

Document your “Book Spine” poem by using an iPad to take a picture. Email the picture to picture60ball@flickr.photo.com

Put your names and your teacher’s name in the subject line. Give your poem a title in the body of the email. Check your teacher’s blog to see your “Book Spine” poem.

For inspiration and other examples, check out these websites where other people have posted pictures of their book spine poems:

Can’t Wait to See What We Come Up With!