April is National Poetry Month! Poetry can sometimes be intimidating to students, but there are fun ways to get them involved in appreciating and creating poetry.

This article from School Library Journal is packed with a ton of unique ideas for helping students uncover the delights of poetry. Some of these ideas include:

• The Goth-O-Matic Poetry Generator: This site “can help you build your own shadowed and unearthly opus. It’s easy to convey your own emotional abyss with this insidious wonder, expressing the dark and tormented path on which you tread.”
• Creating Blackout Poetry – check out this Pinterest page for examples (and make sure to check out CMLE’s Pinterest page for fun library ideas!)
• Steps for writing a “Where I’m From” poem: “This poem encourages tolerance and awareness of our own personal experiences and can be rewritten over and over again.”
• Play with the Magnetic Poetry Kit which is an easy to use, interactive website.

Plus, the article describes initiatives different libraries are taking to incorporate poetry into student activities. It’s always encouraging to see the cool things that happen in libraries across the country.

Happy Poetry Month!