This Week in Children's Literature: Poetry

This has probably been one of the most enjoyable weeks of learning for my children's lit. class, partly because we didn't have a quiz in honor of Thanksgiving. It was about poetry, a subject I've always loved but have sadly neglected in recent years.

What is poetry anyway?

Poetry, at it's most basic, is a short, lyrical response to the world. It is emotion under extreme pressure or recollection in a small space. It is the coal of experience so compressed it becomes a diamond. 

 -Jane Nolan

It is time to make some diamonds again.

Here is a sample poem from my textbook:

Great, Good, Bad

A great book is a homing device

For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care

About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees 

A forest of apologies. 

-From Please Bury Me in the Library by J. Patrick Lewis