Here’s a quick and easy poetry writing lesson that can be used as early as first grade. I call it a “playing with your food” poem. It’s a list poem about playing your favorite sports with your favorite foods.
Step 1: Create a list of five of your favorite sports, like this:
- Basketball
- Soccer
- Baseball
- Volleyball
- Football
As Children’s Poet Laureate, one of my jobs is to select a collection of poetry each month to feature on the Poetry Foundation’s website. There you’ll find my monthly book picks, and those of the previous Children’s Poets Laureate.
My pick for August, 2013 is A Dazzling Display of Dogs, concrete poems by Betsy Franco, illustrations by Michael Wertz.
In addition, I interviewed Betsy Franco about her life as a poet and about her new book. Here is what she had to say.
