Poetry Hunts

Still wondering what you might do at your school, library, community center, church, or home for National Poetry Month? Ever had a Poetry Hunt?

The idea is this: Post poems --with a little info about the poets-- around your building and then make a list of clues that lead from one to the next. Create a form for participants to fill in the names of the poems and poets as they find them.

For instance, an elementary school Poetry Hunt could begin with:

* Take twenty steps and look to your right to find a poem about a fish with no bones (About the Teeth of Sharks by John Ciardi)
* Back up three yards and you will find a poem about a creature with whiskers (Midnight Stray by Rebecca Kai Dotlich)
* Take ten steps diagonally and find a poem written by a poet who was born in 1909 (W by James Reeves)
* Go around the corner and look for the water fountain, where you will find a weather poem (Sunflakes by Frank Asch)
* Go up the stairs. Outside the doorway, find a poem by a woman who was born in Baltimore, Maryland (A Little Song of Life by Lizette Woodworth Reese)
* Turn around and look for the poem by a Newbery award winner (Wish by Linda Sue Park)

You could have the poems match the location in the school. For example, you could have music-related poetry near the music classroom:
* Find a song that was written on the occasion of President Lincoln's birthday (Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson -- I would only include the first verse)
* Find a poem that was written in a sidewalk (Meadowlark Mending Song by Margaret Hasse -- maybe you could include a little image of the sidewalk, from the Web)

Near the library:
* Find a poem written by a poet who lived to be 99 (Books Fall Open by David McCord)
* Find a poem by the author of The Monsterologist (A Scarcity of Words by Bobbi Katz)
* Find a poem by a poet who likes to raise tadpoles (School Librarian by Kristine O’Connell George)

Outside an English classroom:
* Find a poem written by a Canadian poet (Call the periods Call the commas by Kalli Dakos)
* Find a poem written by a poet who speaks four languages (The Unwritten by W.S. Merwin)

Near the gym:
* Find a poem written by the poet who wrote the shortest poem in the world (Shortstop by Charles Ghigna)

Maybe Things I Don't Eat by Mr. Chompchomp could be by the cafeteria, or As I was walking up the stair by Hughes Mearns could be by the stairs. There are lots of things you could do!

Gathering Books is our Poetry Friday round-up host today.

P.S. Last week I had a request for more poems from Against Forgetting. Here's one, but I'm warning you, it's heartbreaking. (It's the third one down, A Conversation Through The Door). I noticed that this particular poem is the subject of a plethora of essays for cheaters (i.e. unethical writers write papers which they sell to disgusting companies who sell them to dishonorable students.) Ugh.