I admit it, poetry was never my favourite thing.
In fact, it’s easy and honest to say that I’ve spent pretty much no significant period in my life reading any sort of rhythm or rhyme.
For a long time, I dismissed such musings outright.
Who wants to read stuff that you have to guess at the meaning?
Rhyming, whatever!
I’m a novelist, not a poet!
Then, of course, came children.
I read SO MANY RHYMING BOOKS when my kids were little, and I started to realize the true cantor of words. Then, how spoken word carried a lyrical quality when written well. Then, how writing poetry could help me become a better long-form writer.
I was hooked and slightly ashamed at my willingness to dismiss such a gorgeous art form.
As I started teaching creative writing, I used it as a way for kids to develop their descriptive writing skills. The results are often amazing
This past week, I introduced my wonderful Grade-1 student, Rickie, to this sort of magic. He got to take home a copy of the lovely Children’s First Book of Poems with illustrations from Cyndy Szekeres.
He pored through it for the last week, and got to pick out the one that made his heart sing.
It was, indeed, a lovely tale about a lonely puffin who traded eating fish for making friends with them (and got to eat pancakes instead, bonus!).
We spent time today learning how to use descriptive words to write a rhyming puffin poem of his own, and it turned out so great.
In the end, though, the biggest win from all of this poetry was receiving an inspired text from his mom over the weekend with him reading a newly minted poem written by Rickie himself. Then, I got to see the hard copy of it today:
