April is National Poetry Month

The Academy of American Poets in 1996 started National Poetry Month in April.  In the years following it has become a literacy celebration in the world with libraries, schools, publishers and poets helping celebrate poetry's vital place in culture.

For more information, check out the links below:

Academy of American Poets
NCTE - National Council of Teachers of English
Poetry Foundation
'Poetry lives everywhere':  NPR kicks off National Poetry Month
National Poetry Month 2018 | NetGalley

Enjoy this poem ---

It’s all I have to bring today

Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

It’s all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

World Theatre Day - Poetry Month - Spring Resources

World Theatre Day

Bring out your students' flair for the dramatic. Study the works of Shakespeare and act out plays for World Theatre Day.

Drama Resources

Poetry Month

April is Poetry Month. Familiarize students with different types of poetry and encourage them to write their own poems.

Poetry Lessons

Springtime Math Math is in full bloom with this spring-themed workbook that teaches kids to count, measure and add. See Now

Spring Into Spring In this lesson, students will learn about the seasonal changes brought by spring. See Now

Classroom resources to help CELEBRATE National Poetry Month!

Yes, April is also Nation Poetry Month! 

Check out Edutopia Editorial Assistant Matt Davis's blog post for resources teachers can use to include poetry in classroom lessons --- http://www.edutopia.org/blog/national-poetry-month-teacher-resources-matt-davis

What's A Poem?

A whisper,
a shout,
thoughts turned     
inside out.

A laugh,
a sigh,
an echo
passing by.

A rhythm,
a rhyme,
a moment
caught in time.

A moon,
a star,
a glimpse
of who you are.

--Charles Ghigna

National Poetry Month and National Library Week

Poetry and Libraries --- I think I see a connection --- do you, I hope so because I am going to use the two for this blog entry! Okay, here goes:

Books, books again, and books once more!
There are our theme, which some miscall
Mere madness, setting little store
By copies either short or tall.
But you, O slaves of shelf and stall!
We rather write for you that hold
Patched folios dear, and prize "the small,
Rare volume, black with tarnished gold."
~ Austin Dobin

Going to the Library
By Jessy Randall

In the library there are pathways
you follow to find out what you want to know --
imagine - somewhere in all these books
or on the face of the computer or in parentheses
at the back of a magazine, there is
the perfect sentence, the answer to your question,
the words all around you like
the tornado in the Wizard of Oz never
go home Dorothy -- Dorothy, never land --
language can be your bed, the
beautiful wonder of all possible poems.

Poem
My Library
By Varda One

It's only a room with shelves and books,
but it's far more magical than it looks

It's a jet on which I soar
to lands that exist no more.

Or a key with which I find
answers to questions crowding my mind.

Building my habit of learning and growing,
asking and researching till I reach knowing.

Here, I've been a mermaid and an elf
I've even learned to be more myself.

I think that I shall never see
a place that's been more useful to me.

With encouraging kind friends with wit
Who tell me to dream big and never quit.

It's only a room with shelves and books,
but it's far more magical than it looks.

WOW ---- stirring words ---- when are you coming in? Happy National Poetry Month and Happy National Library Week! Hurray for both!

February Is Black History Month

Check out these activities around Black History Month:

Thursday, from 11:30 am to 12:50 pm in Founders Hall at Tunxis Community College, a reading and discussion of the "The Slave Narratives" will take place with Poet D. Moss. In the late 1930s, more than 2,300 former slaves from across the South were interviewed by writers of the Works Progress Administration. Born in the last years of slavery or during the Civil Ware, these former salves provided firsthand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities and on small farms.

On February 23 from 1 to 2:20 pm, in Room 6-127 at Tunxis Community College, poet, writer, actress, and spoken word performer Lenise NuNuu Smith, will present her poetry and share theatrical pieces. She has performed at local venues such as the Bushnell, out-of-state at Organix Soul in Springfield, Mass, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City.

For more information, you can call the college at 860-255-3552.

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford will be celebrating Black History January through February. The museum will be holding tours throughout the two months to honor activists, abolitionists and reformers. The tour is structured around abolition movements and the people who worked toward emancipation in the 19th century. Detailed information will be given about the fight for equality and justice African Americans encountered through being enslaved.

For more information about events at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, http://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/.

The Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum in Wethersfield is also giving tours that focus on enslaved and free African-Americans who resided in Wethersfield in the 1700s. Visitors can sees where the slaves slept and worked. Visitors will learn about how the Revolutionary War affected slavery, learn stories of African-Americans, like Quash Gomer, who was captured in Angola and became a slave in Wethersfield, he later bought his freedom from his owner, married Elenor Smith, and had 10 children.

Tours will be held February 19-20 and February 26-27, adults $8, $7 for military members, and $4 for ages 5 to 18. For more information, contact the museum at 860.529.0612 or http://www.webb-deane-stevens.org/.

Check out addition statewide activities at AAAC-African-American Affairs Commission's website at: http://www.cga.ct.gov/aaac/calendar/Feb_coe.htm.

Check out these activities at CCSU - Central Connecticut State University at: http://www.ccsu.edu/page.cfm?p=5634.