Friday, February 19, 2010

Poetry celebrations from LM_NET

Here is a post from LM_NET from a request for interesting things to do for National Poetry Month in April (USA). In New Zealand, our "National Poetry Day" is Friday 30 July 2010 - put it in your calendar now !

1. Last year I sent a poem each day to all staff members and administrators. Many of them enjoyed the poetry; some actually composed their own to send back to everyone. It was a great
communicator for the month.

2. Poetry Slam/Coffee House Night, Design a Poster Contest, Design a Tee Shirt Contest, Poetry on Morning News, DEAR - has to be a poem, Poems at random over the intercom; everyone stops what they're doing,listens, and discusses...

3. We have created a great program around Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poet Project. I saw him a few years back at one of our conferences and brought his book and video back to my teachers and we just went from there. You can also see the video's at his website.
http://www.favoritepoem.org/

4. Last year we celebrated using Poem in Your Pocket day. We got buy-in from the entire staff and then promoted it throughout the month. On this day every student, staff member, and volunteer in the building was invited to carry a poem in their pocket. It could be a poem that
they copied from a book, made up, a friend told them about, song lyrics... We also had some peoms printed out and ready for pockets and books of poetry out on that day for anyone who forgot and needed a poem quickly. Throughout the day participants would trade poems, read
them out loud, or just keep them in their pockets. It was a very fun way to celebrate and almost everyone in the building participated.

Thanks to everyone who responded. Regards, Diane Roberts Saint Thomas High School, Texas.
www.sths.org diane.roberts@sths.org

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