Reading Poetry is Sooooo... Delicious

This years DoD Summer Reading Program is a great opportunity to do lots of Poetry and Pizza programs. It is an easy program that incorporates two of the three values put forth in the teen slogan- eating and reading! On April 12 we had Slam poet Jonathan B Tucker out to do a reading. His energy was amazing! He had audience members from 7 to 70 fully engaged in his poems. We are inviting him back out this summer to do another reading. We will be piggybacking a workshop off of that reading for middle and high school students to learn how to "spit".

This leaves move.. For this we will have a special Story Time in which we use poems to encourage the kids to move. Simply select a few kids poems that talk about wiggling, running- any kind of movement. As you read the poems have the kids act them out. This encourages creative play and gets kids involved in poetry in a fun way.

The Snow Ball Effect

Some may look at these programs and think "Wow, that could be overwhelming." or wonder how much work goes into keeping the standard once set. The wonderful thing about this is after a very successful kick-off program with Jehanne Dubrow, I have had authors falling in my lap to do a reading! Yes I have put some effort into bringing in some more poets and authors, but the key to this program is poets and writers talk! There is a lot of community in the writing world, take advantage of it. Ask your first poet for recommendations on the next. Ask them to tell their colleagues you are interested in holding events and they should feel free to contact you. The point is once a buzz starts about the literary programs going on at your library, finding new voices to participate will be easy.