While surfing the net...

I am feeling inspired to find fun things to do in class every day. A tradition, a routine, something to look forward to...

I came across a project started by Billy Collins, our Poet Laureate in the early 2000s, called Poetry 180. He selected 180 poems, suggesting that we read one per day in high school. Kind of a neat idea, and I might try it if I can find some good poems.


Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.