Poetry

In the book Poetry Matters Ralph Fletcher tells us that there are three pillars of poetry.  These three pillars of poetry include emotion, image and music.  In fact the first three chapters of his book deal with these three pillars.  This week we have been reading about the first pillar of poetry emotion.

According to Ralph Fletcher there are three ways to make your poems more emotional:

1. Think of the poem as an emotional X-Ray
2. Try poem speak
3. Don't say too much
4. Convey emotions through images

Today we created a poster for our writer's notebook that talked about these techniques to make our poems more emotional.  We have also been reading poems like "Lullaby" by Georgia Heard, "To You" by Karla Kuskin, and "Dreams" by Langston Hughes from the book This Place I Know.

Each of these poems, along with Langston Hughes's poem called "Poem," uses one of these techniques that Fletcher talks about in his book.  For example the poem "Poem" has less than 30 words.  I think the class understood that I picked this poem to show us an example of "Don't Say Too Much."  

I hope as we keep looking through Fletcher's book and finding more about these three pillars that the students will find ways that they can make their poems better.  I have already been amazed at the way the students have been taking these example poems and using them to create their own poetry.  

Hope that you all had a great start to your week.