Poem In Your Pocket Day Wrap-Up

Poem in Your Pocket Day became such a wonderful event, and so much more than I expected.

I sent out an email to our staff before the week began. I invited them to share poems on our Poet-tree (see previous post). I also told them about this day and asked if my students could come and share poetry with their classes. The response was so heart-warming. It deserves its own blog post, but as I try to put it into a great narrative, I realize that just listing the awesome moments will be enough.

Here are SOME of the wonderful things that happened on Poem in Your Pocket Day.

• Our principal came to our room to hear our poetry. He gave them feedback on their poetry and was clearly pleased! But what I reveled in was the complete perfection of the moment. My students were creating poetry, they were excited about it & even MORE excited about sharing it. The moments are possible when we give students choice & show them that we are writers, too. The excitement spreads!

• My students organized a schedule for groups to visit classrooms and share. Sometimes when they returned, they brought back younger poets with them from other classes to share poetry with US.

• In the hallway, teachers stopped our class to share poems they pulled out of their own pockets.

• I stopped classes in the hallway to read a poem. Each time I was met with a captive audience.

• Teachers had their students show ME their poems as they waited in line.

• My students shared poetry at the lunch table.

• Our poet-tree is filled with many additions of poetry from every grade.

• I spotted an enthusiastic cluster of kids in the library checking out poetry books.

• At indoor recess on Thursday, a group of my students had a poetry reading in the hallway. They had a nice-sized audience. Afterward, one student in another class sat at a table and wrote a wonderful poem about leaves.

• Even though it was rainy, and we have had lots of sad news in our country last week, I found spots of that special joy that can only come from kids.

• I shared "A Quiet Day" by Amy Ludwig Vanderwater. It's a lovely poem about a great day.

• The finale? Our principal returned to our classroom in Friday to read us his own original poetry! He wrote one especially for our class. As he read it aloud to us, I was brimming with tears!

This week is proof of how much joy poetry can bring. I want that to continue throughout April, May, June, July, etc., etc.

I hope you can celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day next year with us, and read poetry all year long!

(Sidenote: I highly recommend THE POETRY FRIDAY ANTHOLOGY: POEMS FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR WITH CONNECTIONS TO THE TEKS by Dr. Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. It's a great resource for teachers.)