April is National Poetry Month and AHB is celebrating with its second annual Poetry Vibes: Voices of Our Youth. 

Share your poetry, spoken word or rap with us and selected poems from each age-group from each school will be featured on bainbridgecurrents.com – specifically our Arts Education page and all our social media platforms.  Imagine how much fun it will be to see your work in a place where all your friends and family can appreciate what you have created!

This year’s theme for Poetry Vibes is CONNECTION. 

Do you feel connected with yourself, your family, friends, community, nature, interests, etc? What does connection mean in your life now? 

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!

Please complete this Photo/Video Release Form. Submissions should be sent to programs@ahbainbridge.org. You may also upload your recordings within this form or submit them to programs@ahbainbridge.org. We’ll welcome poems throughout the month of April.  *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. Here’s a great example:

‘Poetic Devices’ rap by Testament

Amanda Gorman performed her 2021 inauguration poem, which is a beautiful example of Spoken Word poetry. 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

SUBMISSION DETAILS:

Please complete this Photo/Video Release Form. Submissions should be sent to programs@ahbainbridge.org. You may also upload your recordings within this form or submit them to programs@ahbainbridge.org. We’ll welcome poems throughout the month of April.  *Content must be age-appropriate & not explicit.