Poetry

Poetry can rhyme or not, speak to deep emotions, or lift us with light language and witty wordplay. What can the Internet possibly add to students' experience of poetry? A lot, as it turns out. For one thing, many of these web sites have audio clips so students can have the powerful experience of hearing poetry not just aloud but often read by the poets themselves. "Reading a poem silently instead of saying a poem is like the difference between staring at sheet music and actually humming or playing the music on an instrument," says Robert Pinsky, the past poet laureate.

Poetry on the Internet isn't only about sound. It can also be visual. Watch teacher Glaisma Pérez-Silva as she reads Julia de Burgos's "Ay, Ay, Ay de la Grifa Negra" on the Favorite Poem Project (FPP) to remember how body language can lend a poem drama and intensity. In addition, several sites provide opportunities for interactivity, giving students the satisfaction of seeing their work published or receiving feedback by way of threaded discussions. Finally, web sites let students discover new voices that may not be available on library shelves and provide teachers with access to new curriculum support.

This web bibliography is by no means comprehensive; there are hundreds of excellent sites for individual poets. Nor should the age ranges be taken too seriously. High school librarians will find Kristine O'Connell George's site appropriate for their teens. At the same time, professionals serving elementary students may choose many remarkable readings from the FPP. There is a separate category for Haiku, a common curriculum topic for English classes and a popular form for teen poets.

Children's Haiku Garden
www.tecnet.or.jp/~haiku
The garden contains haiku verses and illustrations created by children from around the world. Each poem occupies its own page. Teachers are encouraged to submit poems and images for posting.

Forms of Poetry for Children
falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/poeform.htm
This Internet School Library Media Center (ISLMC) page is a straightforward site that provides links to reviewed sites. ISLMC is a metasite that functions as a resource for elementary and middle school teachers, librarians, and parents. It is also an easy-to-use reference site for students, offering curriculum-related web sites. Topics include Forms of Poetry, Poetry in the Classroom, Selected Poetry E-Texts, and Poetry Bibliographies.

Janet Wong
www.janetwong.com
From the author of Night Garden: Poems from the World of Dreams and The Rainbow Hand Poems About Mothers and Children, this beautifully designed web site features subtle, impressionistic paintings and clear, well-laid-out text. Easy to navigate, it has a selection of stories and poems for students to read or to hear Wong read aloud. Audio clips can be easily downloaded. Appropriate for grades three through six.

Kristine O'Connell George
www.kristinegeorge.com
George is a critically acclaimed poet, author of The Great Frog Race and Other Poems (Clarion, 1997); Little Dog Poems (Clarion, 1999), an American Library Association Notable Book; and Little Dog with Little Dog and Duncan (Clarion, 2002). The site is a rich and generous source for students and teachers. The graphic presentation is attractive and easy to follow. The For Students section includes links to Middle School Musings, an online forum for kids to share their feelings about middle school; Tips for Young Poets; and plenty of poems, of course, to either read or listen to. Teachers will be pleased to discover George's teacher's guides to her titles, as well as ideas and links on teaching poetry.

Scholastic's Writing With Writers—Poetry
teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/index.htm
This site provides an opportunity for students to become acquainted with three nationally renowned poets: Jack Prelutsky (grades 1–4), Karla Kuskin (grades 4–8), and Jean Marzollo (grades 2–5). Each author's pages provide a biography of the poet, an example of the work, and activities to get students writing. Students can hear Prelutsky read one of his poems and then follow his advice—through wordplay and object observation—to create works of their own. Kuskin sparks creativity by having students write descriptions, then provides questions to help them evaluate their work. Marzollo offers tips on the use of rhythm and rhyme. An extensive teacher's guide for each of the authors provides a curricular framework and objectives. Students may send in their own poetry to be selected for publication.

Surfing the Net With Kids: Virtual Poetry
www.surfnetkids.com/games/funnypoems-wm.htm
Syndicated newspaper columnist Barbara Feldman's commercial site contains this simple interactive game that mimics poetry created with magnets. Using their mouse, kids' can have fun moving around blue rectangles of cut-out words to create their own poetry. Unlike with the magnetic version, users can add their own words. Completed poems can be e-mailed to family and friends.

Grades 9-12

Megasites

The American Verse Project
www.hti.umich.edu/a/amverse
This site, a searchable electronic archive of American poetry prior to 1920, is a collaborative project between the University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative and the University of Michigan Press. All text, no audio, but the easy-to-use database is searchable by author, title, first line, keywords, and proximity and Boolean strategies.

Bartleby.com
www.bartleby.com/verse
Named "Best Literary Resource" for 2002 by the editors of Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine, this free site contains thousands of poems by hundreds of authors. It lists several anthologies, including The Oxford Book of English Verse with 883 poems spanning six centuries of English-language poetry. The site indexes poems chronologically and by author, title, and first line. Advertising is not too intrusive.

Poets' Corner
www.poets-corner.org
The producer's intent is to establish the largest, most diverse, and most user-friendly public library of poetic works ever assembled. The site states that "it is our belief that nearly everything at this site is beyond the 75-year term of copyright protection." With over 6700 works in English by 780 poets, the collection ranges from the best-known classics to obscure ballads in Middle English. There is a search page, using a third-party search engine external to the site, as well as an annotated author index, a subject index, and a title/first line index. Poems are presented in a no-frills manner: clean plain type on a white background.

The Academy of American Poets
www.poets.org
The Academy of American Poets was founded in 1934 to "support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry." The Academy's Online Poetry Classroom (www.onlinepoetryclassroom.org) is an educational resource and online teaching community for high school teachers. It contains over 1200 poems, short biographies, selected bibliographies, and links. In addition to curricular resources, it includes audio of 70 oft-anthologized 20th-century poets like W.H. Auden, John Berryman, Anne Sexton, and Gary Soto performing whole poems in RealAudio format.

Favorite Poem Project
www.favoritepoem.org
Perhaps the coolest poetry web site and proof of poetry's impact on everyday lives. Created by Robert Pinsky as his poet laureate special project, it features ordinary Americans reciting the poems that they love the most. Teens will enjoy watching these 50 Favorite Poem Videos, accompanied by the texts of the poems. There are two sections especially for teachers: Lessons and Projects and Poetry Across Disciplines. The site uses RealVideo extensively and includes some RealAudio as well.

Fooling With Words With Bill Moyer
www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords
An extremely attractive, easy-to-navigate site from Thirteen/WNET and the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival—the largest poetry event in North America. The site presents 22 poets in powerful video clips. The site also provides biographies, selected poems, and interviews. Poet Peter Murphy, who teaches English and creative writing at Atlantic City High School, NJ, has prepared three lesson plans for teachers, and a teacher's guide can be downloaded. Be sure to preview, as many poets address mature themes.

Poetry Daily
www.poems.com
A publication of the Daily Poetry Association, this anthology of contemporary poetry presents a new poem every day, culled from books, magazines, and journals currently in print. Poems are chosen from the work of a wide variety of poets published in the English language. Each posting contains biographical information. Previous entries are available for viewing.

Poetry 180
www.loc.gov/poetry/180
Current Poet Laureate Billy Collins, an advocate of reading poetry aloud, has created a site for high school students on the Library of Congress site. It provides the texts of 180 poems by contemporary American poets that Collins has selected for each day of the school year. Also offered are suggestions for presenting each poem in a school setting, as well as guidance on how to read it aloud. "Just hearing well-written poems they don't have to analyze might convince students that poetry can be understandable, painless, and even an eye-opening part of their everyday experience," Collins says.

Teachers & Writers Collaborative
www.twc.org
Teachers & Writers Collaborative (TWC) was founded in 1967 by a group of writers and educators who believed that writers could make a unique contribution to the teaching of writing. TWC brings writers and educators together in collaborations that explore the connections between writing and reading literature. Useful for both teachers and students, the site contains material on teaching techniques, poets, and the inspiration for writing. Poets Chat includes biographies and interviews with poets, as well as readings to download. Follow the WriteNet links to the unique interactive I Remember web project, where snippets of memories can be read or contributed.

WordSmiths: An Anthology of Writing By Teens on the Web
www2.nypl.org/home/branch/teen/WordSmiths-Current.cfm
Produced by New York Public Library's (NYPL) Office of Young Adult Services, this site encourages teen poets to submit their poems to Wordsmiths: Teen Voices @ TeenLink, a web anthology of writing by teenagers open to teens everywhere. The staff of NYPL will review submissions, and all work that is accepted will be included in an edition of WordSmiths and posted on the site. For students aged 12–18. No class assignments accepted.

A Haiku Homepage
home.clara.net/pka/haiku/haiku.htm
A superb introduction to haiku by Phil Adams, a librarian at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Advantages include simple presentation, with clear content and writing. Contains hints on how to write haiku; a yearbook, or collection, of poems; and a set of links to other resources. Writers may submit their own poems to be considered for the yearbook.

The Haiku Society of America
www.hsa-haiku.org
This rich resource on haiku includes the last 26 winning poems of the annual Harold G. Henderson Award. One must join the society to submit poems to the competition. Includes announcements, news, and links to the world of haiku.

Links to Haiku Sites
www.execpc.com/%7Eohaus/haiklink.htm
Hundreds of links are organized under haiku journals and publishers online, haiku journals and publishers in paper, haiku anthologies online, haiku poets' web sites, haiku essays and papers, haiku groups and associations, and haiku research and resources.