Poet Tea Tuesday: Part Three Black out Poetry!

Black out poetry is a fun way to get the teens to look at what is important to leave in, as well as what is important to leave out. After all, choosing the right word is sometimes the hardest part of writing! Black out poetry looks at this concept in a interesting and creative way.

All that is needed is some discarded book or newspaper pages, some sharpies, and some creativity. Have the teens select a page, and then black out words to create a poem with the words left.  Black out poetry is cool on some other levels too, since it combines reusing and art into the piece.

The teens who participated in this made some really amazing creations, and later when we had some more poets visit, they were super excited to try this out! It is engaging for all levels to participate in and it helps teens who do not consider themselves poets realize that they too can create poetry. They just need to find the right words to put together! (Or leave out!)

For an example of black out poetry, more information, or general questions, email me at dstates@yorklibraries.org

What is one of your favorite types of poetry? Leave a comment!

Dawn states: Black out poetry is my favorite!

Poet Tea Part 2

I would like to talk about some amazing poets who took time out of their day to come to Poet Tea Tuesday and really spend time interacting with the teens. It was so awesome to see the teens open up to these poets and be encouraged by them! (It is also National Poetry Month, so hopefully this is inspiring for you!)

Christine Lincoln was one of these amazing poets who came to share and do poetry with the teens. (http://yorkcity.org/poet-laureate)  (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Poet-Laureate-of-York-2014/1434727086770646) She was the one who actually contacted the library when she heard of Poet Tea Tuesday, and because of her there were some amazing connections made! She is truly a wonderful poet and person, and it was great to have her involved with the teens!

Dustin Nispel was another poet who took time to come to the library for Poet Tea Tuesday, share his work, and speak about what got him into poetry. (http://denpoetry.com/) This was a fantastic and inspiring experience for many of the teens. Dustin is a spoken word poet, something I freely admit that I cannot do, so having him here exposed the teens to a side of poetry I could not present. One of the teens in the group who was usually really quiet opened up to Dustin about his writing and asked him lots of questions. It turns out he was interested in spoken word too, something I did not know!

Here is what I learned from this experience and what I would like to share with you:

• First, find and connect with the local poets in your area. They are out there! Many times the library is a great platform for them to share their work, and it can be a mind-opening experience for your teens.

• Secondly, recognize your poetry strengths and weaknesses. Haiku not your thing? Really love limericks? Ballads bore you? Find someone else who loves these things if you really feel passionately about sharing them with your teens. I really wanted teens to experience spoken word but I do not do spoken word, but there usually is someone around who can and is willing to share their passion. Reach out and connect with them! (If you do not like poetry at all, but feel that poetry is something that the teens need, see if you can find someone else to run the program. If not, do a few pop-up poetry events and leave it at that. Find something else that you and your teens can connect on passionately...short stories anyone?)

• Lastly, encourage the poets and the teens to open up with each other and ask questions! Be sure to thank the poets for their time, and allow the program to take a natural course. Let the poets know an outline of what you would like them to talk about or do, but do not plan out every minute of the interaction. If you need to help things move along, do so, but let the teens really have a chance to talk to the poets! Great things can happen this way!

Dawn States: Poetry is great! Do you have a favorite poet? Leave a comment!
Questions? Send me an email dstates@yorklibraries.org

Poet Tea Tuesday

I am very passionate about poetry and its ability to move and connect people. Every year at the library where I work, there is a poetry contest. Children and teens are able to enter their poetry and then they are able to come read their poetry at the event. It is a really amazing event that I got to witness this year. In preparation and leading up to the event, it seemed like a good idea to have some poetry nights with the teens until the poetry contest. This would help them realize that they too can write poetry and have a piece to enter into the contest, and it would make poetry fun and accessible to them. Because of this, Poet Tea Tuesdays came about!

The idea for Poet Tea Tuesday is simple: have hot water, tea,  and hot cocoa and then provide an active or passive type of poetry for the teens to do. This is a great program for colder months, because the teens can show up, write a poem, get something warm to drink and hang out and discuss their poems.

Since I think poetry is awesome at any time, here are some ideas to get a similar program started!

Poetry Cubes: Find a simple paper box template, add images and words, and then have the teens cut them out and assemble the boxes. Roll the box, and whatever image or word appears they have to include it in a poem or write a poem about it.

Post-it note Poetry: I really like this one! Have the teens all write a poem on a post-it note. To keep it interesting, provide different sizes and colors of post-it notes. They can then post the poem on a wall of the library. (Encourage library appropriate language, most teens do this anyway if the idea is already in place. Also, if they are comfortable with you, they will share their poetry work and you can double check that it is appropriate. I did not really worry about this too much, I appreciate expression, and my advice is to put up the library appropriate ones, but if a teen writes something that isn't have them take that one home and write another one for the library. Look at that you just got a teen to write two poems instead of one! Hurrah!)

Last idea, and stay tuned for more: Magnetic poetry! Provide a kit and several metal objects and let the teens create! Think of the largest metal thing that is in the library that you can provide for the teens (book cart, chair, bookshelf, refrigerator maybe not so much) and let them make a poem on that. I had some really amazing poems from this session, from cat poems (yay!) to really deep poetry all from those magnetic word kits. They are more than just magnets!

What is your favorite poem or poet? Leave a comment!
Dawn states: poetry is awesome! dstates@yorklibraries.org