This month is National Poetry Month. If you were to play “what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear….” and fill the blank with “poetry”, the poem I heard when attending school as a child would come to mind immediately, it always does. It’s not the first poem that I heard, it just means more because of the context.

The poem is “Trees” and the poet was Joyce Kilmer.  Do you know that it is only in recent years that I discoveed that Joyce was not a woman?  I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that.  I went to a private school from 2nd through 8th grade. First we met in a church, then they purchased some of the barracks at Camp Kilmer in central New Jersey, and moved the school there. This former army base was named after Joyce Kilmer, which is why the poem had special meaning when first hearing it at that school and being told a bit about the history of the area.

There are many resources for the school teachers online, whether you teach at home or in the classroom, to use when preparing for this month.  Some of them that I enjoyed are at the following links:

• Read Write Think 
• Eduplace
• Family Education
• A to Z Teacher’s Stuff
• poetry.about.com
• scholastic.com

There are many more, feel free to use the search box and search “National Poetry Month”.