poetry-month1
Hi kids! What do you miss this year? What do you wish for when the pandemic is under control, and life begins to return to normal? Could it be freedom from mask wearing, new forms of communicating, entrenched Zoom-life, strengthened friendships, feelings of confusion or frustration? Here is a chance to send us a poem you wrote about what you hope to see or do. It can be any kind of poem, and you can make a video of it, put music behind it, record a dance you’ve created about it, or any number of other great ideas you might have. So sit down with your computer or pencil and paper, and begin to create your hopes for the days to come.
Selected poems from each age-group from each school will be featured in a special ‘Poetry Vibes’ e-blast each Tuesday for the entire month of April. They’ll also be showcased on Currents – specifically our Arts Education page and all our social media platforms. Imagine how much fun it will be to see your creation in a place where all your friends and family can appreciate your art!
Please complete this Photo/Video Release Form. You may also upload your recordings within this form or submit them to admin@ahbainbridge.org. We’ll welcome poems throughout the month of April. You may send your submission from March, 30 2021. (*content must be age-appropriate & not explicit).
Here are just a few types of poems you may use as reference while writing a poem of your own:
Rap is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates “rhyme, rhythmic speech, and the street vernacular” which is performed or chanted in a variety of ways, usually over a backing beat of musical accompaniment.
(For the entire poem, google Trayvon Brown, Walk with me)
Don’t …SHOOT
Cuz I don’t wanna die young,
I want grow old and have
A daughter or a son, or maybe both,
To live…
Amanda Gorman performed her 2021 inauguration poem, which is a beautiful example of spoken word poetry, combined with a rap style. It uses a lot of rhythmic beats that move emotion, as well as the subject of her art.
(For the entire poem, google Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem)
When day comes we ask ourselves,
where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
The loss we carry,
a sea we must wade
We’ve braved the belly of the beast
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice……………….
—Amanda Gorman
Haiku is a type of short form poetry originally from Japan consisting of three phrases that contain a kireji, or “cutting word’, 17 syllables on a 5,7,5 pattern, adding up to the total of 17.
5 – An ocean voyage
7 – As waves break over the bow.
5 – the sea welcomes me.
– Author unknown
Free-verse poetry is a literary device that can be defined as poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and does not rhyme with fixed forms.
My heart burned with grief for those
Who wandered the streets alone and cold.
-Ginny Kaul
Blank verse is poetry written with a precise meter – almost always iambic pentameter – that does not rhyme…
As I wandered through the woods,
I thought I saw a maiden fair.
She gathered berries from a bush
And whistled as she carried them.
-Ginny Kaul
Rhymed poetry. In contrast to blank verse, rhymed poems rhyme by definition, although their scheme varies.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
-Author unknown
Ballad is a poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas.
(For the entire poem, google The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill, by Robert W. Service)
I took a contract to bury the body
of blasphemous Bill McEye
Where-ever, when ever, what-so-ever
The manner of death he die………….
-Robert W Service
Cinquains is a class of poetic forms that employ a 5-line form, such as a Limerick – a light or humorous verse form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines 1,2, and 5 of three “feet” and lines 3 and 4 are of two “feet” with a rhyme theme of AABBA
A. There once was a lady from Niger
A. Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
B. They came back from the ride
B. With the lady inside,
A. And the smile on the face of the tiger.
-Ginny Kaul
EXAMPLE OF SPOKEN WORD (Voices from Harlem | Jermaine Dupri x Harlem Writers Guild):
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
Please complete this Photo/Video Release Form. You may also upload your recordings within this form or submit them to admin@ahbainbridge.org. We’ll welcome poems throughout the month of April. You may send your submission from March, 30 2021. (*content must be age-appropriate & not explicit).