Making April Educational (and fun)

She woke me early to say, "I made breakfast for you!"

What a treat on April Fool's Day. A perfectly guileless action: waffles with blueberry compote and syrup, compliments of my Littlest.

We smiled around the sunny breakfast table, and I announced my sudden idea. "Hey, did you know it's National Poetry Month?"

The girls admitted they'd never heard of such a thing.

We decided then and there that we'd read a poem a day for the month of April. And the girls would write a poem a day, and I would feature their poetry here (as much as possible).

My Littlest decided to write down the poem titles we've read, and their page numbers, so she can go back to them if she likes. We even had a discussion about how English poetry didn't used to rhyme (it used alliteration), but when it merged with French (a rhyming language) everything got mixed up... and now we think we should rhyme in English when, well... that's not natural (the third poem below might be struggling through that idea! :)

Happy National Poetry Month. And so we begin...

The First Day

It's the first day of April,
light shines in the window,
the National Poetry Month.
When people write poetry
whenever they can, it's
the first day of April,
National Poetry Month!

-- by Sonia, 10


Just for Me

Write one
poem every
day just
for me, me
April.

Read one
poem every
day just
for me, me
April.

Just in April,
just for me,
just for me,
me April.

-- by Sonia


Try

Try to write a poem when
when you're thinking through
something different,
when you wonder
about things; then
you can't.

Your poem pursues the subject,
gets caught, and
never turns back.
Or you can order it back,
tell it to go,
force it.

You can do it,
you can...
but-- poems don't
work that way,
not naturally.

If this is your case,
then let it go, let it
write itself out--
it'll work.

-- by Sara, 12


Sonia in the Tree photo by L.L. Barkat. Poems by Sara and Sonia, used with permission.