Happy April and Happy National Poetry Month!
It’s time once again to read, write, share, and simply indulge your love for poetry in every way.
Need some ideas? Visit poets.org for the full scoop on how you can participate, including 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day (April 18, 2019), Poem-a-Day, and especially for students and teachers, the Dear Poet Project. Check the state-by-state listings to find poetry-related events near you.
Now, here’s a list of what some kidlit bloggers are doing. If you’re also celebrating Poetry Month with a special project or blog event, or know of anyone else who is, please leave a comment here or email me: readermail (at) jamakimrattigan (dot) com, so I can add the information to this Roundup. Thanks, and have a beautiful, inspiring, uplifting, productive, and memorable April!
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Hooray, it’s Progressive Poem time again! Irene Latham at Live Your Poem has recruited 30 poets for her eighth annual Kidlitosphere Progressive Poem. This is a wonderful community writing project where a poem travels daily from blog to blog, with each host adding a new line. Matt Forrest Esenwine will kick things off with the first line of this year’s children’s poem at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme on April 1. Here’s the full schedule of participating bloggers:
April
1 Matt @Radio, Rhythm and Rhyme
2 Kat @Kathryn Apel
3 Kimberly @KimberlyHutmacherWrites
4 Jone @DeoWriter
5 Linda @TeacherDance
6 Tara @Going to Walden
7 Ruth @thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown
8 Mary Lee @A Year of Reading
9 Rebecca @Rebecca Herzog
10 Janet F. @Live Your Poem
11 Dani @Doing the Work that Matters
12 Margaret @Reflections on the Teche
13 Doraine @Dori Reads
14 Christie @Wondering and Wandering
15 Robyn @Life on the Deckle Edge
16 Carol @Beyond LiteracyLink
17 Amy @The Poem Farm
18 Linda @A Word Edgewise
19 Heidi @my juicy little universe
20 Buffy @Buffy’s Blog
21 Michelle @Michelle Kogan
22 Catherine @Reading to the Core
23 Penny @a penny and her jots
24 Tabatha @The Opposite of Indifference
25 Jan @Bookseestudio
26 Linda @Write Time
27 Sheila @Sheila Renfro
28 Liz @Elizabeth Steinglass
29 Irene @Live Your Poem
30 Donna @Mainely Write
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Irene Latham will also be continuing her personal NPM project, Artspeak!, (now in its 5th year), where she writes a poem a day in response to a piece of art. This year’s theme is “Happy” after her 2019 One Little Word. Look for short, happy poems for kids at Live Your Poem all month long.
To whet your appetite, here’s Irene’s introductory poem inspired by “The Sky Was Yellow” by Enrico Baj:
And, as an added bonus, Irene will be featuring poem videos too. Love!
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Over at A Year of Reading, Mary Lee Hahn will be PLAYING WITH POETRY using Haikubes, Magnetic Poetry, Metaphor Dice, and Paint Chip Poetry. She’s inviting everyone to join her and write along (use the Twitter hashtag #playwithpoetryNPM to cheer each other on). Let the fun begin!
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The “Classroom Connections” series at Today’s Little Ditty will be showcasing recent poetry books — eclectic collections, lyrical picture books, and engaging verse novels — and how they can be used as mentor texts in the classroom. Complete with author/editor interviews, exercises for teachers to use for elementary, middle, and high school students, and LOTS of giveaways! Michelle H. Barnes is your gracious host. 🙂
Here’s the schedule:
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Along with the Literacy Council at her middle school, Linda Mitchell is organizing a brackets-style competition called Poetry Pandemonium. There are 16 poems and brackets. She says, “We will see which poem (that has recognizable language arts standards in it) wins the hearts and minds of my school. I will share bits from it in April.” Read this post to learn more details about the project at Linda’s blog A Word Edgewise.
Jama's Alphabet Soup 