Filled with hundreds of motivating lessons and activities, The Poetry Corner helps you show students that poetry is a part of everyday life - from nursery rhymes, schoolyard chants, jump rope jingles, and popular music, to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Poetry from the past and present, drawn from traditional sources as well as common childhood experiences, provide models and standards for reading, writing, and evaluating poetry. Lessons such as "Newspaper Poems," "License Plate Poems," diamante, and lanterne poems encourage student creativity and are guaranteed to capture and hold students’ attention.

The book takes readers into the past of poetry through a broad selection of poets and their works. Some of the poems of the past have gone the way of all language; they have changed. The phrases you remember and the way you repeated them may be different from the ones in this volume. There is a truth here that should not escape us. Poetry changes and expands in style and form just as the disciplines of music and art. An unfamiliar form of poetry may seem incongruous to a reader when in poetic terms it is just another aspect of language change. It’s good to cherish the old for there are the roots, the foundations, for building the new.

Many students and teachers in my classes and workshops have served as sources of encouragement by using the poetic devices in this book successfully. I am indebted to them.

A distinction is made between poetry and poetic writing. The great mass of writing done by children and dubbed "poetry" is not actually poetry from the author’s point of view. While poetry is difficult to define and set within parameters, general agreement or consensus is generally found among poets and students of poetry on what poetry is not. The doggerel and early poetic musing of children is at least distinguishable to many.

The term "poetic writing" is found quite often in this book. It indicates the expectation that children will begin writing with an eye toward the poetic. It is hoped many will relish and find excitement in poetic language. Perhaps they will experience a dimension in this area of the arts that will pull them into the joys of poetry throughout their lives. The Czech biologist and poet, Miroslav Holub, saw poetry as part of the average person’s normal life pattern: "I would like them to read poems as naturally as they read the papers, or go to a football game."

Although The Poetry Corner is not an anthology, it contains poems and references to poetry of the last several centuries. By listening to and reading poetry (poems that are generally agreed upon as poems through the test of continued use and popularity) perhaps some children can expand their vision of poetry and its usefulness in their lives.

The rhythm, cadence, and meter that masters of poetry contributed to this genre of literature should not be lost. The taste of the best of past years and present years gives children standards of quality with which to make judgments of their own work.

Of the many ways of touching the poetic psyches of children, two are essential. First, children must hear poetry read aloud. This, of course, implies that the reader knows how to select poetry for reading aloud and enjoys sharing poetry in this way. Second, children must have the opportunity to involve themselves in the mind stretching language exercise of putting pen to paper and creating.

Children are more comfortable with restraints than with un-supervised freedom. This is true not only in the behavioral areas but also the academic. Formula type poetic exercise loosens literary creativity within structure. The syllabic and word poetic writing found in this book help children focus their language skills. The forms are short enough that children are not overwhelmed by the task. Therefore, experience shows they write much more than required.