Each spring
Lined note pads of
Decorated paper from the dollar store
Pencils or skinny markers
Their choice
Became the tools of
Second grade poets.
Who,
Every single spring,
Surprised me with their
Prowess
To paint words
Into images
Which laughingly,
Startlingly
Opened my eyes with
Delight.
Spring
Equaled
Lucy Calkins’ and
Reggie Routman’s
Books on my table
Supporting my teaching
Of looking at our world
With fresh eyes and
New techniques.
No fill-in-the-blank
Poetry for us.
We learned
Repetition is a force,
We used it over,
And over,
And over,
And over.
We learned lists can
Convey
An idea,
And become a
Poems of
Alliteration
Onomatopoeia
Personification
Metaphor
And questioning.
We learned
to use
Line breaks
To emphasize
A point
A thought.
We learned that those words
The first words we learned to spell
Yes and
No
Are powerful descriptors of the topics
We long
Write about
Pets – yes
Brothers – yes
Food – yes
Bathroom habits – no!
Parties – yes
Weather – yes
Shoes – yes
Cattiness – no!
Teachers – maybe.
We learned to see
Beauty and
Wonder
In everyday objects
And
Everyday events.
We learned that
The perfect students
Sometimes
Struggled with the looseness of
Poetry
And
Struggling students often
Were future
Poet laureates.
Each year
I learned
New things about my kiddos,
Who lived for cold dips
In the icy water of Lake Michigan,
Whose dog gets fleas
ALL
The time
Who has a fairy
Living in the tree stump
In her back yard.
We pasted our poems
Written on cheap note paper
Decorated with puppies,
Lighthouses,
And rainbows,
Written with pencil,
Or skinny markers
Their choice
Into
Pink
Or purple
Spiral notebooks
(Gathered by me
On a cool autumn day
In anticipation of spring.)
Our collections became
Pink (or Purple)
Poetry
Portfolios
Which I graded with
My rubric
While I laughed
And sighed
And marveled at
The young humans
Opening their eyes,
And hearts.
I learned to be grateful
Each year
Because
For me
Spring
Equals
Poetry.
