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Poetry Suggestions for Kids

Poets love to play with words and take the ordinary and make it special. Poets love to tell little stories with as few words as possible. Poets are dreamers. Poets don't always make sense. Do you know a few Nursery Rhymes? This is one that I like.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!"

I like the sound of "Humpty Dumpty" and it's repeated in the second line. I enjoy saying it twice. The poem usually comes with an illustration. So I know he's a rather large egg. And he must have been important because all of the king's horses and men tried to put him back together again. Such a silly story inside a poem! But why do you remember it? The end words rhyme — wall and fall, men and again. The rhyme helps you remember the "story" in the poem. So what have you discovered so far?

• It's okay to be silly in poems and rhyme words.
• Poems can tell mini-stories. You can do that in your poems!
• Poets don't always make sense. Don't worry too much about what your poem really means. Just have some fun with words.
• Repeating words in a poem is fine, as long as it sounds good.
• To make sure you poem is good, you will need to read it aloud again and again to yourself.

In the poem, "The Wheels on the Bus," we are told eight times in the first four lines that the wheels go 'round and 'round, but that's okay. It just makes the poem more fun. Many songs can be written down on paper because they are really poems set to music — just like "The Wheels on the Bus." In my poem "Dad Says He's King of the Castle," I have mom laughing "tee-hee-tee-hee" nine times. And when I visit schools, kids love to chant mom's line with me. That convinces me the line really works.
Sometimes we just need a simple recipe to cook up a poem. Using acrostics (a form of writing) to spell out a name vertically on the page is fun, especially if it's your favorite pet's name. You may have done this already in school. Here's a poem my illustrator wrote on page 80 of Picture Poetry on Parade! about my dog.

Rosco the great.
Oh, what a dog.
Superior intellect.
Cat chaser.
Oh, what a dog…

After seeing right into the mind of this dog, Rosco, we discover he thinks rather highly of himself. In other words…

• Poetry can follow a simple pattern.
• You can write about anything—huge eggs, buses, dogs, people, places…Whatever you dream up! You have the power!
• You can write about feelings. It helps to get the sad out.
• You can use your senses in your poetry. ("After I walked in the polluted lake, my sneakers smelled like rotten eggs.")
• You can write about wishes or fishes.

That's what I did in the last poem in my book which is titled, "If Wishes Were Fishes." I love the dreamy-eyed girl in the illustration. That's another exciting activity that you can do after writing a poem—you can create a drawing for it. My friend, Lori DeLeonardis-Aman, is an awesome artist.
If you truly want to write wonderful poems, you need to do three things. Read, read, and read lot of poets that you like, again and again. Then copy some of the poems down on paper to get a feel for the words that the author used and the way they are arranged on the page. And be sure to copy the author's name right next to the poem. (We don't want any messy elephants wrecking our writing corner.) Lastly, you need to show others what you have written and let them enjoy your priceless creations… Good luck! I'll be rooting for you, especially if you enter my Monthly Poetry Contest!