From the League of Canadian Poets:

Celebrate National Poetry Month 2024 with the theme of WEATHER. Through sun, snow, rain, wind, fog, and many other iterations, we find the captivating presence of weather. With poetic flair, weather dictates the rhythms of our lives from coast to coast.

This April 2024, we invite poets and poetry lovers to delve into the experiences, feelings, and inspiration that weather offers. Whether the serenity of a snowfall, exhilaration of a summer downpour, or the familiar whispers of a gentle breeze, the League of Canadian Poets invites you to explore WEATHER this National Poetry Month – April 2024.

1. Selections from: Tea and Bannock Stories: First Nations Community of Poetic Voices (Simon Fraser University, First Nations Studies. Compiled by annie ross, Brandon Bob, Eve Chuang and the Chuang Family, Steve Davis, Robert Pictou)

2. Selections from Poetry Foundation: Poetry for Children

Ideas for Teachers: (from the League of Canadian Poets)

Poetry Play Stations

Poetry play stations use different techniques to encourage young readers to craft poems. Here are some great stations to include:

Erasure poetry: Using a page of existing text, use a black marker to complete cross out sections of the text — the words or phrases that remain can be strung together to form an original poem! Part of the beauty of erasure poem is how the entire page looks when completed, blacked-out sections and all.  Try it with a newspaper article!

Found poetry: Found poetry is very similar to erasure poetry — well, erasure poetry is a kind of found poetry — but with a little more freedom. Again using an existing text, participants select words or phrases from the text that they think will make a great poem: using the found words and phrases, they can play with line breaks, stanzas, and other ways of construction an original poem from the found text!

Book spine poetry: This is a great poetic experiment that takes over Twitter every April — using as few as three or as many as… well, as many as you can stack, create a poem using the titles of books as they appear on the spines. These make excellent photos and are great for sharing!

Magnet poetry: A classic! Choosing words from a pile of individual words to string together an original poem. This could be from a magnetic poetry set, but you could also simply prepare an assortment of words for participants to choose from.” (Source: League of Canadian Poets)

From the League of Canadian Poets:

The League of Canadian Poets invites you to celebrate the 24nd National Poetry Month this April 2022 with the theme of intimacy. 

This National Poetry Month, we invite you to celebrate with the theme of INTIMACY.

We crave it. We fear it. We are ready to build walls against it and dive headfirst into its open arms. Intimacy is the closeness we feel with those who love us, given freely through warm hugs. It’s a shared laugh or glance between strangers, a moment of comfort in an anonymous world.

What will you read this National Poetry Month?  Will you start your own poetry writing project? Will you write your first poem?

1. Selections from: Tea and Bannock Stories: First Nations Community of Poetic Voices (Simon Fraser University, First Nations Studies. Compiled by annie ross, Brandon Bob, Eve Chuang and the Chuang Family, Steve Davis, Robert Pictou)

2. Selections from Poetry Foundation: Poetry for Children

Ideas for Teachers: (from the League of Canadian Poets)

Poetry Play Stations

Poetry play stations use different techniques to encourage young readers to craft poems. Here are some great stations to include:

Erasure poetry: Using a page of existing text, use a black marker to complete cross out sections of the text — the words or phrases that remain can be strung together to form an original poem! Part of the beauty of erasure poem is how the entire page looks when completed, blacked-out sections and all.  Try it with a newspaper article!

Found poetry: Found poetry is very similar to erasure poetry — well, erasure poetry is a kind of found poetry — but with a little more freedom. Again using an existing text, participants select words or phrases from the text that they think will make a great poem: using the found words and phrases, they can play with line breaks, stanzas, and other ways of construction an original poem from the found text!

Book spine poetry: This is a great poetic experiment that takes over Twitter every April — using as few as three or as many as… well, as many as you can stack, create a poem using the titles of books as they appear on the spines. These make excellent photos and are great for sharing!

Magnet poetry: A classic! Choosing words from a pile of individual words to string together an original poem. This could be from a magnetic poetry set, but you could also simply prepare an assortment of words for participants to choose from.” (Source: League of Canadian Poets)

From the League of Canadian Poets:

The League of Canadian Poets invites you to celebrate the 23nd National Poetry Month this April 2021 with the theme of resilience. 

“What does it mean to be resilient? We meet resilience in every corner we’ve been backed into, every hardship that we endure. Resilience is geographical, spiritual, historical. It’s the fight against climate change, the inner battle with mental health, the outcry for human rights and an end to systemic racism. Resilience is the backbone of generations of trauma, the silence at the dinner table, the bow to culture’s violin. Resilience is the courage to start each day anew. This NPM 2021, we celebrate, reflect on and respect the resilience that has made us who we are.”

1. Selections from: Tea and Bannock Stories: First Nations Community of Poetic Voices (Simon Fraser University, First Nations Studies. Compiled by annie ross, Brandon Bob, Eve Chuang and the Chuang Family, Steve Davis, Robert Pictou)

2. Selections from Poetry Foundation: Poetry for Children

Ideas for Teachers: (from the League of Canadian Poets)

Poetry Play Stations

Poetry play stations use different techniques to encourage young readers to craft poems. Here are some great stations to include:

Erasure poetry: Using a page of existing text, use a black marker to complete cross out sections of the text — the words or phrases that remain can be strung together to form an original poem! Part of the beauty of erasure poem is how the entire page looks when completed, blacked-out sections and all.  Try it with a newspaper article!

Found poetry: Found poetry is very similar to erasure poetry — well, erasure poetry is a kind of found poetry — but with a little more freedom. Again using an existing text, participants select words or phrases from the text that they think will make a great poem: using the found words and phrases, they can play with line breaks, stanzas, and other ways of construction an original poem from the found text!

Book spine poetry: This is a great poetic experiment that takes over Twitter every April — using as few as three or as many as… well, as many as you can stack, create a poem using the titles of books as they appear on the spines. These make excellent photos and are great for sharing!

Magnet poetry: A classic! Choosing words from a pile of individual words to string together an original poem. This could be from a magnetic poetry set, but you could also simply prepare an assortment of words for participants to choose from.” (Source: League of Canadian Poets)