Johnise: I am starting on my poem and I got more than I expected accomplished. I am saying what makes me unique, what makes me happy or sad, and how I move through the world. The rest is secret. Shhhhh…

Emma: The poem is started! We talked about some different poetic techniques (like alliteration) and used online resources like merriam webster and rhymer. Hopefully we’ll be able to put the poem “in motion” soon.

Today, we read a lot of poems by different authors, to give Johnise ideas for our project. Here are the links to the poems we read:

Billy Collins, Introduction to Poetry 

Maya Angelou, Phenomenal Woman 

Langston Hughes, Dreams

Eavan Boland, This Moment

Gwendolyn Brookes, We real cool

Linda Pastan, A New Poet

Walt Whitman, part of Song of Myself 

Wislawa Szymborska, Possibilities 

Johnise’s favorite was Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou, because it is so confident. Emma’s favorites are Phenomenal Woman and Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins.

We decided that Johnise is going to write a Song of Herself poem, the way Walt Whitman, Maya Angelou, Wislawa Szymborska, and some of the other poets above wrote poems expressing themselves, who they are, their likes and dislikes and ideas.

Johnise says: Hey, how’s it going?… Maya Angelou is a real inspiration for what I’m gonna do with my song, and Billy Collins saying poetry is poetry and you should like it for what it is instead of trying to turn it sideways to understand it.