You see, these boring teachers I had would recite a poem and then say, “Now open your geography book to page 122,” or whatever.
Well, my feeling is this: find a poem that goes along with the other thing you’re teaching. If you’re teaching math, find some poems about math. If you’re teaching about the food chain, you’ll find plenty of funny poems about food.
I used to talk about a poem called “Willy Ate a Worm,” and I’d say, “Do the food chain and talk about eating a worm.” Don’t be afraid to combine poetry with other media. We’ve had kids set poems to music, combine them with art, make little paintings and mobiles and sculptures and dioramas, and put on plays. Really, the only limit is their imagination and the teacher’s imagination.
It’s the idea that the words are all out there. I do invent some words, but basically, all the words I’ve ever written are in the dictionary. It’s just finding the way to combine them.
Find the key. There’s a key to every poem. Remember that when the poem was written, the poet wrote that poem because something happened to the poet first. It was something felt, or thought, or remembered, or dreamt, or experienced. So, try to put a little of the same feeling into recreating the poem in class that the poet put into writing the poem.
