2022 Post #23 -- Golden Moment, Potent Ending

 by Brett Vogelsinger

When I first read Eve Ewing's poem "testify" on the Poem-a-Day email from poets.org, the bright optimism of the images at the heart of the poem, the friendly exchange between neighbors on a beautiful day, and the spiritual connotation of the word "testify" all left me enamored with the poem and encouraged by its words at the end of a particularly tough day of teaching. 

I shared it with two colleagues during our PLC time before sharing it with students, and found one of them brought an entirely different interpretation to the poem.  "All that repetition at the end . . . and then the last word, 'yet.' I find that ominous!" she said. 

On my first reading of the poem, I saw the conclusion of the poem as life-affirming, a sort of carpe diem, akin to the last few lines of Rudy Francisco's poem "Complainers."  But my colleague's reading complicated things.  And so did my students' reading of the poem. 

Most of them liked the poem but disliked the ending, finding the repetition neither life-affirming nor ominous but bothersome, without purpose.  "Oh, that much repetition is certainly not an accident.  Look at how the lines break.  Look at how much real estate this conclusion occupies. It matters.  This is purposeful!" I told them. We theorized about what that purpose might be. 

 Later, when I read it out loud in a professional development session after participants had a chance to read it silently, one teacher told me, "I pictured that part read much slower than you just read it," and when I reconceived the poem read with the ending at a different pace, it changed the poem again for me. 

Like all my favorite poems, this is a poem that gets more interesting each time I read it.  I feel like I understand it the first time, but then I keep understanding it more and differently as I read it again and hear how other people respond to it. 

And that is the lesson I share with this poem: that great poetry changes when you hold it to the light and look at it from different angles. There is not one path to understanding and interpreting it.  So if this poem is new to you too, don't overthink how to share it with students.  Just share it with them.  Ask what they like about it and what makes it different than other poems they have read.  Enjoy the authentic response and discussion that ensues, and enjoy how it shapes your own reading of this memorable poem.  

Further Reading:

Brett Vogelsinger NBCT, has over twenty years of experience teaching English, creative writing, and AP Lit in grades 8-12. His books Poetry Pauses (2023) and Artful AI in Writing Instruction (2025) emphasize practical lessons that help students connect with word and technology in productive, artful ways. You can find him on most social media using the handle @theVogelman, on LinkedIn, or at brettvogelsinger.com..

2022 Post #22 -- Finding the Bright Spots

 by Cayne Letizia

The collective trauma that educators and students experienced during the pandemic is something that we will all be dealing with for years to come. As schools closed 2 years ago and we prepared our students for a few days of work thinking we would return, days quickly turned into weeks that turned into months. To help my students process the event and record a once in a lifetime experience I had them keep a daily journal. The journal included news events, daily thoughts about being in lock down and reflections on remote learning. A theme emerged from the writing of my 7th and 8th graders. It was a theme of finding beauty in the small moments. Which student discovered a passion for baking? Who learned how to ride a unicycle? Some read more in quarantine they had all year while others found themselves home with siblings and families after years of just passing each other between practices and activities.

Recently an image of a lone flower emerging from a small crack in a sidewalk posted to twitter rattled free these memories of the early days of the pandemic and inspired a poetry activity.



Using the image of the dandelion emerging from the crack I asked students to respond in their writer’s notebooks. I also shared with them how former students kept journals during the pandemic and many while in lockdown discovered hidden talents and passions. Students completed the https://www.mentimeter.com/ to post a word that came to mind from their sketch, excerpts & free write.





Students discovered the link between difficult or challenging times being sources of inspiration. Then I placed this graphic on the board for a table discussion.



We then moved to a reading of Tupac Shakur’s poem "The Rose that Grew from Concrete" and Julio Polanco’s poem "Identity."  Students annotated the poems and discussed how it relates to the theme of the journal entries.

Students then created their own poems. They were encouraged to model their poem after the two poems, create a poem inspired by the dandelion emerging from concrete or reflect on their pandemic experience where they discovered a passion or interest.

Further Reading:

Cayne Letizia teaches 7th and 8th Grade English in a town just outside of NYC. This is his 20th year as an educator. He is passionate about literacy and social justice. You can follow him on Twitter here: @cayneletizia

2022 Post #21 -- What Hushes Us

by Brett Vogelsinger

Hayden Saunier's poem "I Need to Live Near a Creek" is so short and lovely and calming, and students enjoy writing their own variations of it.  The poems helps me teach two things: assonance and self-knowledge. 

First, we read the poem twice and I ask students, "What sound do you hear repeated here several times?" Naturally, they pick out the rhyming words, "lush," "rush," and "hushes."  I have them next identify what is the vowel sound in all those rhymes.  "OK, here's something really cool.  That "u" sound is hidden four other places in this poem. Can you find it?"

the

because

of

up

"And it just gets cooler - that vowel sound creates a little bit of a lullaby sound in the poem doesn't it, especially when you put it with the "s" and "sh" sounds sometimes.  And that sound effect matches the whole point of the poem -- knowing what brings you calm, what hushes you up inside."  

Of course teenagers love learning that these repeated vowel sounds have a fun name: assonance. 

This year, we read this poem days after the Alex Dimitrov poem, "Love," which I wrote about two days ago on this blog.  So this time I had them create a poem that begins with the words "I need" and told them they could use them once like Saunier or repeatedly like Dimitrov.  

After inviting a few quick share, I tell them one last gem from those two words.  When resolving conflict, "I need" statements are generally productive, so much better than telling someone "you should."  So these words not only help you know what brings you calm, but help others know it as well. 

Further Reading: 

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA. He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers. Follow him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2022 Post #20 -- A Good Poem is a Good Poem (for Any Age)

by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell

Think of some of your favorite poems and poetry books. For adults, for children, for readers of any age. Chances are, one of those poems is a William Carlos Williams poem, or a Billy Collins poem, or a Naomi Shihab Nye poem, or a Shel Silverstein poem, and you can tell us what that poem is “about” in ten seconds or less.

Poetry doesn’t need to be complicated. And we feel that the best poems are actually very simple—about just one thing, a “universal” experience such as finding the last plum gone, or hearing a dog bark forever, or finding someone to help you at the airport, or taking the garbage out—told in plain language that a five-year-old can understand.

Here’s a poem about holding the door open for someone: “Open” by Linda Kulp Trout.



This is an ekphrastic poem that Linda Kulp Trout wrote for our book Things We Do. We gave her two restrictions: (1) the poem should connect in some way to this photo, and (2) needed to fit on the page, which is 8.5” square with a large font size. In response, Linda constructed a whole story and a call to action for kindness that anyone, ages 2 to 102, can understand.

Things We Do has a target audience of PreK to Grade 2, but we feel strongly that every single poem in the book will resonate with your students. Too many poetry gems in illustrated books intended for younger readers are never found by secondary students; w,e would love to change that. Yes, some students might find illustrated poems to be “baby-ish,” but for other students, these “younger” poems will spark joyful memories of a visit to grandparents, long-forgotten toys, a first science project, or the way they learned to type.

Or for another activity, invite students to “reverse engineer” the poem and find a new photo or drawing or create a collage to illustrate some aspect of the poem in a more abstract way. Here are two examples:








So let’s think twice when we decide what poems are most appropriate for our students—and what poems are “too young.”

A good poem is a good poem for any age.

​​Further Reading:




Sylvia Vardell is Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University; her current work focuses on poetry for children, including the nationally recognized blog, Poetry for Children. Janet Wong is the author of 37 books for children and teens on a wide variety of subjects, including race (Good Luck Gold & MORE). You can learn more about their newest books Things We Do and Things We Eat at the Pomelo Books website.

2022 Post #19 -- What Do You Love?

 by Brett Vogelsinger

Alex Dimitrov's poem "Love" is pages long in The Best American Poetry 2021 anthology, but every stanza starts with the same two words:  "I love."  Some of these sentences are just three words long, while others spill into multiple lines of poetry.  

The poem was composed on Twitter, one little bit at a time, but read as a single piece, it has the momentum of a perfect piece of anaphora and a flow of ideas that feels a bit like an accordion to me, sometimes expanding on an idea, then contracting to a completely different one with the next "I love." 

To begin our poem of the day routine, I walk around the room showing my students the length of this poem, reminding them poems don't have to be short.  They can keep them rolling along for pages in their notebooks if they would like.  

Then I tell them, "I'm going to read the first twelve lines aloud, without you seeing this poem, and when I stop, just keep the ball rolling.  Start listing the things you love.  Ride the wave of this parallel structure Alex Dimitrov creates by starting line after line, stanza after stanza, with the same two words." 

The next moments in class are beautiful, silent but for the scratching of pencils in notebooks, and students never seem to finish before I stop them.  Within minutes, some students have even filled an entire page with a poem. 

Here is an example of what my student, Brooke, created:

This exercise is a golden opportunity to succinctly teach the power of parallel structure or anaphora because students have already built their own example of it, riding the wave of Dimitrov's original.  

Brett Vogelsinger is a ninth grade English teacher and NBCT at Holicong Middle School in Doylestown, PA. He is the founding editor of Go Poems, facilitates his school's literary magazine, Sevenatenine, and contributes monthly posts at Moving Writers. Follow him on Twitter @theVogelman.

2022 Post #18 -- Ode to the Joyful Ones

by Elizabeth Jones

One thing I love about teaching middle and high school is the unique opportunity to watch my students grow and evolve as they traverse the angst of teenage life. Often, I marvel at their kinship and at their willingness to lift one another up when the need is there. What a wonderful human quality that is - to lighten another’s day! Thomas Lux’s work, “Ode to the Joyful Ones”, is a lovely poem that sums up this sentiment beautifully. It is based on an Anglican prayer of St. Augustine, and it expresses the sentiment that we should be grateful for those who make life sweeter.

In the poem, Lux repeats the line “Because you don’t have to tell them to walk toward the light”, which is a wonderful discussion starter: What is the light of which he speaks? Students define and discuss the light they see around them in their friends and family members, in their beliefs and in their dreams. Another line: “Because when there are two of them together / their shining fills a room” is lyrical. Students fill a page in their Writer’s Notebooks with gratitude for the people who are their ‘joyful ones’ - the ones who make them smile or laugh out loud, the ones who make life sweeter.

This poem is also a wonderful segue into certain literary characters. Hans Huberman from The Book Thief comes to mind immediately. He is certainly a light in the lives of all who know him.

I believe that a practice of gratitude, including poems like Lux’s “Ode to the Joyful Ones”, is critical to our students’ development as fully functioning human beings on the planet.

Further Reading: 

Elizabeth Jones is an English teacher in the Central Bucks School District in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

2022 Post #17 -- A Poem to Inspire Confidence and Swagger

by Jessica Sherburn

Patrick Kindig’s poem "Gum Patrick” is a humorous and relatable exploration of how even the smallest details -- in this case, the gum we chew -- can elevate our sense of self-esteem and inspire confidence.

NOTE: If you teach this poem, students will ask you for a piece of gum -- guaranteed. You have been forewarned.

After reading the poem (and reviewing appropriate gum disposal techniques) ask students to consider the following questions:

1. What can the speaker do confidently when they are chewing gum? How do they walk, talk, and move through the world with swagger?

2. Which situations in life make the speaker feel vulnerable, uncomfortable, or worried? How does chewing gum change this?

3. What would a perfect day look like for you? How would you walk, talk, and be in the world? What would magically go right? What awkward or confusing situations would you avoid?

In the past, my students have listed ideas like:

• Never pushing a pull door (or vice versa)
• Striding through the crowded halls without bumping into anyone
• Hitting every greenlight
• Getting all As
• Never draining their phone battery

What’s an item of clothing, accessory, situation, etc. that makes you feel extremely confident, even if only for a brief amount of time?

Students often identify things such as:

• Athletic uniforms, theater costumes, or other hobby related clothing/accessories
• A new outfit or pair of shoes
• Sunglasses
• Driving with the windows down
• Listening to the perfect playlist

Ask students to put all the pieces together to draft a “Gum Patrick” style poem, like “Fresh Haircut Jess” or “When I Wear My Ray-Bans.” Then sit back and enjoy the bustling, gum-smacking energy of the classroom as your students write their way to their best imagined selves.

Further Reading from Patrick Kindig

Jessica Sherburn lives in Chicago, Illinois where she teaches English at Stephen T. Mather High School. She has served as a Representative-at-Large within the Michigan Council of Teachers of English and a Teacher Advisory Group Member for the Zekelman Holocaust Memorial Center. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaSherburn.

2022 Post #16 -- Giving a Song A Second Read

by Drew Sterner

As I typically do with poetry, we look at it twice. I will often have students read it first to themselves and jot down their quick reactions in their writer’s journal. Then, I will read it to them. A question we often start with after doing this is “How did my reading alter your original interaction with the poem?” Students can discuss their reactions in small groups, or we can discuss it as a larger group.

With William Carlos Williams “The Fool’s Song” it makes sense to take a moment to have students identify the metaphor as well as the use of repetition and why Williams chooses to do this in his poem.

I tried to put a bird in a cage.

O fool that I am!

For the bird was Truth.

Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put

Truth in a cage!

And when I had the bird in the cage,

O fool that I am!

Why, it broke my pretty cage.

Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put

Truth in a cage!

And when the bird was flown from the cage,

O fool that I am!

Why, I had nor bird nor cage.

Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put

Truth in a cage!

Heigh-ho! Truth in a cage.

I like this poem though more for its message and the use of Truth as a metaphor. Hopefully by this point, a student has observed that Truth/the bird cannot be restrained. It is rife with opportunity for students to write about or discuss the many things in our lives/world that resemble this metaphor of things that we struggle with or perhaps shouldn’t try to restrain, as well as the many “truths” that fly around us in our modern world.

Students can also experiment with free verse after looking at this poem and create a similar type of metaphor and then compose a single stanza that emulates Williams’s style in this poem.

Further Reading:

   

Drew Sterner teaches ELA at the middle school level and is an advisor to the student-run school literary magazine, Roaring Voices Review.