A Great Day for Poetry

In 1996, the Academy of American Poets declared April National Poetry Month-- a thirty-day opportunity each year for schools, libraries, and Poetry Paraders everywhere to celebrate poetry and its place in our lives.  It's all about beautiful words, creative thought... and getting together to share poetry on the Great Poetry Reading Day! Today, Poetry on Parade selects two poems that are great for reading, great for sharing, and great for inviting us to look at the world in a different way: 

Doors 

Some doors

are always open     Some

doors hold themselves

shut

The open doors say

"Come on in" and

"I missed you"

and

"Have a sandwich"

The closed doors

just shake their heads

I know a door

that collects things

collects

leaves     scratches

chipped paint

parts of words

It is an old door

getting gray and crabby

The other day

it said "SLAM!"     and collected

my fingers 

-- Barbara Esbensen 

Lost Poems 

I wrote a bunch of poems,

stapled them together,

took them to a friend's house.

But they somehow slipped

through the floor boards

and disappeared.

I never got those poems back.

I tried to rewrite them

but they weren't the same.

One night two months later,

sleeping over my friend's house,

we heard restless sounds,

strange little noises

that my friend insisted

were nothing but squirrels or mice.

But I pictured my lost poems

scurrying on little feet

between the floors. 

-- Ralph Fletcher

Poetry on Parade also joins Lafayette School's celebration of Staff Appreciation Week with a poem about a class who is trying very hard to appreciate a new teacher: 

No Smirchling Allowed 

A brand new teacher came today

     from one of the other schools.

"Be serious," she ordered us,

     "and listen to my rules.

"There won't be any splurching,

     and you're not allowed to flitz.

Anybody caught klumpeting

     will put me in a snitz.

"No floozering at recess.

     Grufflinking's not permitted.

And anyone who splubs outside

     will not be readmitted.

"When you put your hand up,

     I don't want to hear a bloud.

And let's be clear that while

     I'm here, no sneeping is allowed."

I was truly baffled, but I didn't

     want to show it.

What if I was flitchering and

     didn't even know it?

We sat as still as statues.

     None of us made a peep.

All of us were terrified

     we'd accidentally sneep.

We didn't have a clue about

     the rules that she was using.

How can anyone be good

     when being good is so confusing? 

-- Loris Lesynski

Some of those rules are hard to follow-- and difficult to pronounce-- on Great Poetry Reading Day.  Good Luck, Poetry Paraders!