Poems signed by students

Stop.
Wait!
Poems by students? By adult learners of English?
Well, that's right.
Since the year 2000 that 21st March has been World Poetry Day. Having in mind that UNESCO's aim with this date is to promote Reading, Writing and the teaching/learning of Poetry and using an interactive resource  from Read Write Think, I challenged my adult learners to write Acrostic Poems, in other words, poems that use the letters in a topic word to begin each line. Some sts chose to use their own names, others chose topics as family or love, others still, festivities. Not all managed to complete their first poetic attempt; other poems were saved and sent without a final correction. Nevertheless, the result was so encouraging and rewarding that we would like to share these beautiful poems with you all.
Their poems follow below - and because we are approaching Easter, this "story" starts with an Easter bunny made with the students' names :=) So, what do you think? Approved, right?

Poetry at Work Day

Poetry (at work) at its best!  I Hear America Singing
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck, The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands, The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown, The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else, The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs. in http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15752 by Walt Whitman, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/walt-whitman

Poetry at Work Day POSTER

For poetry lovers (and not only):

http://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/every-day-poems/

9 days to Christmas

How about some poetry? Poems for and about Christmas, obviously.
Favorite Christmas Poems, ed. by James Daley. This collection ranges from serious seasonal reflections by Martin Luther and John Milton to flights of fancy from Lewis Carroll. Other contributors include Rossetti, Kipling, Poe, Longfellow, Dickinson, Hardy, Donne, and Sir Walter Scott. It also contains 25 black-and-white etchings, engravings, and drawings.

                 *~* Happy Reading... and Happy Christmas *~*

Ode to Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
        Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
        With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
        And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
          To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
        With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
    And still more, later flowers for the bees,
  Until they think warm days will never cease,
          For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

  Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
      Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
  Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
      Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
  Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
      Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
          Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
  And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
      Steady thy laden head across a brook;
      Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
          Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

  Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
      Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
  While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
      And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
  Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
      Among the river sallows, borne aloft
          Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
  And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
      Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
      The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
          And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats in I Like this Poem ed. by Kaye Webb

Source: npg.org.uk

Happy Thanksgiving :)

Image Credit: wikipedia

The Gift Outright

by Robert Frost

The land was ours before we were the land’s.

She was our land more than a hundred years

Before we were her people. She was ours

In Massachusetts, in Virginia,

But we were England’s, still colonials,

Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,

Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Something we were withholding made us weak

Until we found out that it was ourselves

We were withholding from our land of living,

And forthwith found salvation in surrender.

Such as we were we gave ourselves outright

(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)

To the land vaguely realizing westward,

But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,

Such as she was, such as she would become.

Source: The Poetry of Robert Frost (Henry Holt & Co., 1969)