Celebrate National Poetry Month with Your Kids

I am a big fan of both poetry and children, and now is the time to celebrate them both — April is National Poetry Month!

National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture.

The Academy of American Poets’ website serves as a hub for information about local poetry events during the month, so be sure to check it out for local events you and the family can enjoy. The organization also provides free educational resources to teachers for classroom celebrations and activities, and commissions an annual festival poster with almost 150,000 copies distributed to schools, libraries, and community centers for free. In the past, these collectible posters have been designed by noted graphic designers such as Chip Kidd and Milton Glaser.

To help parents celebrate National Poetry Month with their little ones, I’ve compiled some excellent web resources for children’s poetry (reading and writing) below. Also here’s one of my favorite poems ever: Eating Poetry by Mark Strand. Mark passed away last year, but this poem of his lives on, and it is a great reminder of the joy of reading (and eating) poetry.

Eating Poetry is one of the first poems I remember reading and completely loving. It makes several leaps of metaphor that just make perfect sense to me, and it has left me hungry for more poetry ever since.

If you’ve got other resources to add, leave them in the comments below.

POEMS TO READ (BY ADULTS, MOSTLY):

• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/browse/#filter_good_for_children=1
• http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poems/famous/children/
• http://storyit.com/Classics/JustPoems/
• http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/poems-kids
• http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/poems-for-kids

POEMS TO READ (BY KIDS, MOSTLY)

• http://www.loriswebs.com/youngpoets/
• http://www.shavick.com/section/11/1/young-poets

• http://www.poetry4kids.com/blog/lessons/poetry-writing-lessons/
• http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/tips-howtos/help-child-write-poem-30317.html
• https://www.pinterest.com/judyhelton/teaching-poetry/