The word “poetry” causes a flood of emotions and memories from past experiences. I remember my dad reading to me from the Shel Silverstein’s poetry collections before bed almost every night. For a long time, that was my singular idea of poetry. As we continued to study poetry through school, through very short units, I became less and less comfortable reading poetry. It always seemed as though my analyses of poems were not matching what the teacher was telling us we should be taking away. I was confused and defeated which have been the emotions related to poetry since. And when it comes to writing poetry, you could say that I am even more terrified. I have always associated authors of poetry as deeply intellectual people who are capable of spinning written words into music. When I reread the poetry that I have written out loud, it sounds as though a child wrote random words down out of order. Even though I consider myself an emotional individual, I have always struggled to convey those feelings through written prose.

I cannot say that I pursue reading and writing poetry unless it is an academic requirement. Last semester, we looked at children’s literature and poetry was one genre that was studied. I was introduced to some beneficial books such as A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms by Paul Janeczko and Traveling the Blue Road: Poems of the Sea by Lee Bennett Hopkins. These books help me as a student and as a teacher because they produce mentor texts as well as scaffold my attempts at writing poetry. Some poetry that has really moved me recently are works from Mary Oliver and Rupi Kaur. Both of her books, The Sun and Her Flowers and Milk and Honey, were lent to me by my roommate and I was utterly speechless when I finished reading them. I never knew that so few words would bring me to tears, make me laugh out loud, or make me shake.

you treat them as if                                             i do not want to have you

they have a heart like yours                              to fill the empty parts of me

but not everyone can be                                     i want to be full on my own

as soft and as tender as you                              i want to be so complete

you don’t see                                                         i could light a whole city

the person they are                                              and then

you see the person                                               i want to have you

they have the potential to be                              cause the two of

you give and give till                                            us combined

they have taken everything                                could set it

out of you and leave                                            on fire

you empty

-rupi kaur                                                              -rupi kaur

I think poetry is neglected in elementary schools and beyond because teachers might be nervous to teach it as well as it not having a set definition. Poetry is a form of literature that is meant to have meaning to the author and some readers might relate while others might not. There are so many forms that they are countless. Poetry is an emotional art that reads like musical lyrics. It is something that I want to teach my students to not be afraid of. I think by providing a variety of mentor texts that students can base their work off of and become more comfortable with will be a great start to introducing this genre of literature. I would still like to become more comfortable with reading and writing poetry myself.