Day 7 Modern Verse

Robert Pinsky, the 39th Poet Laureate of the United States, founded the Favorite Poem Project which has been dedicated to celebrating, documenting and promoting poetry’s role in Americans’ lives. During the one-year open call for submissions, 18,000 Americans wrote to the project volunteering to share their favorite poems - “Americans from ages 5 to 97, from every state, of diverse occupations, kinds of education and backgrounds.”

The website includes poems, lesson plans, and 50 videos from those submissions. In particular, John Ulrich's Response to the poem below shows the power a simple poem can have.

S   5 10

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

Your Turn: Now you get to try your hand at a Favorite Poem Response. Select a poem that has deep personal meaning for you. Present the poem to the class, along with an explanation of why you chose this poem. Two criteria are most important in your presentation:

1. The poem is to be the center of the presentation.
2. Reaction to the poem is to be at a personal level. Illustration and illumination of the poem comes through the reader’s comments about his or her reaction to the poem itself.

Listen to Brooks read this poem.