My current campus has a newish tradition of celebrating poetry month in the library and classrooms by reading, writing, and illustrating all kinds of poems. The best part of that month is Poem in Your Pocket Day because it’s one part poetry, one part celebration, and one part party.  We think the party part is especially important to celebrate how much students have learned as aspiring poets. On our actual Poem in your Pocket Day (PiYP), students find “listeners” to read their poems to and earn a ticket for each reading. Tickets are added to a drawing for creative themed prizes to encourage more writing, reading, and art!

Last year was our first attempt at cementing this tradition, and it helped the enthusiasm build for participation to have the previous year’s photos and videos to share in library visits. We start April with poetry lessons in so many forms, including poem read alouds for each library lesson. Each year I try to add new activities, but consistent favorites are blackout poetry, graffiti poems, and shape poetry. A new activity this year was giving poetry books a grade using emojis. We read for 5-10 minutes at a time -students’ choice – then graded the book to see which books in our collection earned top marks. For a slide deck about the Poem in your Pocket Day for campus planning click here.