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LC launches Online Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature & much more poetry goodness
I know I am late to the National Poetry Month party. Every time I started a post someone else finished the one I was beginning. (Darn you, dear Richard Byrne.)
Assuming that we all believe poetry ought to be a year-long or life-long celebration, here is a tour some of my favorite resources.
As part of that celebration, the Library of Congress recently launched its Online Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, a collection of 123 audio-recorded readings of renowned poets and prose writers reading from their work. Among the notable readers are : Elizabeth Bishop, Rita Dove, Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Frost.
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Dating back to 1943, the physical archive contains nearly 2,000 recordings of poets and prose writers who participated in literary events at the Library and read at the Library’s Jefferson Building recording studio. These recordings are not easily available elsewhere. Many were originally captured on magnetic tape reels. The Library hopes that this digitization effort will greatly broaden their use and value and plan to continue to add to the archive on a monthly basis.
You may also be interested in the Library of Congress Guide to the Poets Laureate and Poetry Written by US Presidents.
The International Literacy Association and National of Council of Teachers of English or NCTE’s ReadWriteThink gathers a fabulous assortment of National Poetry Month resources. Don’t miss their new Mobile Apps.
In addition to its 30 Ways to Celebration National Poetry Month, The New York Times Learning Network gathers Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month With The New York Times from its significant archive reaching back to 2010. Among the high-quality learning activities you’ll find:
- Pose a Poetry Question: What Memorable Poetry Have You Ever Read or Heard? Invites students respond to this Student Opinion question.
- Post Your Own Found Poem: The Found Poem Student Challenge is in its sixth year.
- Or, Create a Blackout Poem: In 2014, The Times challenged readers to create “blackout poems” by redacting words from Times articles.
- A Poem for a Friend: Inspired by a video from Nikki Giovanni. The prompt: Think about someone you know who might need the gift of a poem — for any reason. What poem would you give this person, and why.
- Does Poetry Matter? Discuss: Room for Debate recently challenged seven experts to debate this question.
- Quite a Pair(ing): Poetry Pairings, a weekly feature begun in June 2010. Use the Teaching and Learning Ideas For Any Poetry-News Pairing or pair their own original poems with another piece of writing. (In 2015 The Magazine began publishing a poem each week.)
- How Many Metaphors Have You Stumbled Over Today? Op-Ed columnist David Brooks discusses the prevalence of metaphors to describe our world and suggests students keep a one-day metaphor journal.
- Rhythm, Meter and the Poetry Tweet-er: Asks students to read the Twitter poems by Billy Collins, Claudia Rankine, Elizabeth Alexander and Robert Pinsky and contribute their own work to a collection of Twitter poems. The Less Is More: Using Social Media to Inspire Concise Writing lesson offers additional poetic ideas.
Other resources to good to miss include:
National Poetry Month: official website of the Academy of American Poets and headquarters of the celebration. Check out the Dear Poet letter-writing project for young people.
The Poetry Learning Lab from the Poetry Foundation includes a glossary of poetry terms, public domain poems, Core Learning Poems, audio and podcastsand essays on poetry. Children’s poetry may be searched by subject, occasion, holiday, region, poet’s birthday, school or period, or poetic terms.
Writing With Writers: Poetry: For grades one through eight, Scholastic’s highly engaging step-by-step workshops with beloved poets–Jack Prelutsky, Jean Marzollo, Karla Kuskin as well as a Poetry Idea E