Low Pressure Poetry

It’s poetry month. Taylor Swift’s new album is dropping today. And I want you to know how to approach poetry at home.

Poetry is for everyone.

I’m pretty sure we all know this by now, BUT JUST IN CASE: you don’t have to be moody, a Swiftie¹, or highly academic to read poetry. (You can, of course, be all three.)

Here’s what you can be: you can just be a person.

I want my children, your children, and everyone’s children to grow up knowing they can have many interests, and that they can be interested in things they aren’t the best at.²

That means they can like reading poetry without the need to analyze each line. That also means they can write poetry as a means of private self expression, without the need to share or receive feedback.

They can read poetry because they like the way the words sound. They can read poetry to feel better. They can read poetry to laugh. They can read poetry because they genuinely like to read poems like puzzles, and they love a good highlighter and pen combo. They can read poetry to feel understood. They can read poetry to learn.

They can write poetry and love it and know that it’s not going to win any prizes. They can write poetry and share it. They can write poetry and throw it away because what they gained from the act of writing was the purpose.

Poetry is here for all of us. Exposing our children to poetry is a precious gift; it’s a gift we want them to like, though, and not put aside without removing the tags, only to be discovered years later with a, “Shucks! I should have been into this when I first got it!”

Let’s stay positive.

Teachers everywhere are doing their best to integrate poetry with curriculum in fun and relevant ways. Parents and caregivers can play a role, too, and it extends beyond saying, “Hey, music is poetry, you know” (which, of course, it is).

As an educator, I’ve seen two poetry roadblocks in the classroom that parents and caregivers can help remove in order to help their children and make academic instruction easier for teachers. These roadblocks are the fear of poetry and the belief that poetry always has to rhyme.³

Parents and caregivers — all grownups outside the classroom — can expose children to poetry in its many forms.

Here’s what you don’t have to do: Make your children analyze, find metaphors, or say allusion when they notice the poem references something else they’ve read or know about.⁴

Again, here is your job: Expose your children to poetry and language in as many different ways as possible. And, though you don’t need to force it, invite them to create their own poems in different forms, too. Just read it. Read poetry by different people from different eras in different countries who present it in different ways. Read a little bit at a time. Keep tasting and trying.

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I’m going to share some reminders, and, as I often do, a list of books and some ideas for how to use them for joy + connection.

REMINDER: Less can be more.

I really wanted to be a teacher who read a poem each day, but, sadly, there just wasn’t enough time for it all. We did more like a poem a week. But the poem-a-day format of the funny poem anthology A Whale of a Time could be a really fun breakfast or after-school-snack tradition for your family.

The poems in the book are all funny, different, and written by a slew of poets you’ll be happy to meet (if you don’t already love them).

REMINDER: Picture books are often poetry.

Most recently, in my house, we’ve been loving Roar Like a Dandelion by children’s literature legend Ruth Krauss. With my preschooler, I like to point out things in daily life to be like: “Let’s stretch like the tall trees,” for example. With an elementary schooler (and up), I would just say, “The trees are really stretching today; don’t you think?”

Writing activity: Stick post-its over the words in a picture book. Have your writer write words to go with the pictures. They don’t need to be a story with a beginning, middle, and end. I love Isabelle Arsenault’s illustrations, and I recommend Once Upon a Northern Night (illustrated by Arsenault and written by Jean Pendziwol) for this activity (if you don’t have a story that pops in your head immediately!).

REMINDER: Poetry doesn’t always look the same.

Grant Snider

’s new book Poetry Comics is such a good reminder that poetry can come in many different forms. I have it checked out from the library right now, and I think it might make its way onto my permanent shelves after this loan is up. Please check it out, especially if you have a graphic novel lover. But also if you don’t!

Writing activity: I’m going to present two (of many, of course) options. One would be the same as the above. Put post-it’s over the words in Grant’s poems and have your writer create their own poetry comics using Grant’s illustrations as a guide. The second is to give your writer some paper with a few panels on it and have them create their own. Maybe it’s something you do alongside one another. Maybe it’s something siblings do together. One child may draw first and then find the words. The next child may do the opposite. That’s the beauty of creativity, don’t you think?

REMINDER: Think beyond “for kids”.

As you may be reminded in A Whale of a Time, not all poets who write poems children love are poets who set out to write poems for children. I love this! Another collection of poems I have checked out from the library right now (Beastly Verse) is most definitely for kids, but — and I am thinking in particular about a William Blake poem in the book — the selections aren’t all what you’d expect kids’ poems to be.

Activity: As Yoon does in Beastly Verse, have your child (or whole family) illustrate a poem. Make it come alive. Be abstract or literal. Let the words decide where the art goes!

One of my favorite poetry anthologies is Unleashed: Poems by Writers’ Dogs. One of my professors from college has a poem in this book, and I think it’s such a fun and charming premise that animal lovers of all ages.

Writing activity: Write poems from the perspective of your dog (or cat, or fish, or stuffed animals). Simple. Fun. Low pressure.

If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of

Lyndsay Rush

, who is known as Mary Oliver’s Drunk Cousin on Instagram. Here’s what I think about Instagram poetry. (Spoiler: I love it.)

Anyways, please pre-order her forthcoming book, A Bit Much, and also subscribe to

Mary Oliver's Drunk Substack

, her home for “headline poems”. No, she didn’t ask me to say this. I’m just fangirling and am not embarrassed about it one bit. Though tween and teen girls aren’t her intended audience, I really do hope you’ll share her poems with the tween and teen girls in your life⁵.

Writing activity: Write your own headline poems! Essentially, you choose a headline and turn it into a poem title. No, you don’t even have to read the article. Subscribe to Lyndsay’s Substack to get a sense for how she does them / what they are. (She has more on her Instagram, too.) Find a headline that speaks to you / your child. Look at back issues of teen magazines from your youth, and then have each of you write your own headline poem. Compare and contrast. Look at local newspapers (current and the archives). Poke around and find a publication that speaks to you (ironically, earnestly, whatever!). Have FUN with it.

This post is called Low Pressure Poetry because poetry doesn’t have to be perfect or uptight. It doesn’t have to be right or wrong.

I hope you’ll find what you love and what you need when it comes to poetry, and I hope you’ll help your children do the same. I hope you’ll find something to bond over. Maybe you’ll take my recommendations, or maybe you’ll just use this newsletter as a springboard to find the poems and picture books and anthologies that work for your family in this moment.

Have fun with it, and please share your poetry experiences, if you’d like. We’d all love to hear and cheer you on.

1. I’m done writing about T. Swift today. But you better believe I’m listening to and thinking about this new album all day long.

2. Has anyone read Never Enough? It’s been in a stack in my bedroom for months, and I really need to get to it.

3. Fellow educators, feel free to share your own observations, too! It should go without saying, but my experience isn’t superior to anyone else’s — every teacher’s experience (and all the children, of course) are important!

4. Of course, of course, if your child wants help with these things, or if their teacher explicitly says they need to practice or study, then that’s a different story.

5. If you’re interested in joining or learning more about a potential grownup/child poetry book club featuring Lyndsay’s poems and some others, would you please let me know?