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Poems & Poets for Poetry Month

Gear up and prepare for Poetry Month which starts Thursday, April 1! Use the resources in this section to find poems and poets to share in your lessons.

Grades 5-12

Amanda Gorman Inauguration Poem Lessons

Amanda Gorman captured the nation's attention with the recitation of her inspiring poem, "The Hill We Climb," during President Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration ceremony. This site shares lessons and teaching activities to accompany the poem.

Grades 8-12

Poetry Out Loud

Discover lesson plans correlated to NCTE standards and poems to share with your students. Browse poems by collection, poet, poetic form, or poetic term. Each poem includes a short biography of the poet and links to their additional works.

Grades 3-5

Poetic Devices Scavenger Hunt

Use the poems on this site to teach poetic devices like alliteration, personification, and stanzas. Students become detectives by searching through the verses and identifying and recording information onto their activity sheet.

Grades 10-12

The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database

Peruse this collection of more than 300 poems by socially engaged poets. Topics cover a wide variety of themes, including aging, gender identity, economics, and environmental issues. Many poems include audio and video options.

Grades K-12

CurriConnects Book List - Poets and Poetry

Share these poetry books, poet biographies, and books about writing by poets to make poetry more approachable and enjoyable for readers of all interests. Books are divided by age level from preschool through young adult and include reading levels.

Tools to Create Poetry

Bring some creativity to your classroom and delight students of all ages with resources they can use to create their own works of poetry. 

Grades 7-12

Verse by Verse

Check out this experimental poetry creation project by Google that uses AI (artificial intelligence) and the suggestions of classic American poets to create poems. Select up to 3 muses for inspiration, a poem structure, syllable count, and rhyme.

Grades 4-12

Poetry Generators

This poetry generator has something for everyone. Find inspiration to write a concrete/shape poem, haiku, limerick, acrostic, poem about feelings, and more. There are also generators included for Father's Day, Thanksgiving, and other holidays.

Grades K-5

Kids Magnetic Poetry Kit

Create and play with magnetic poetry. Drag words from the word bank onto the blank board to build poems. When finished, save and share to social media or via email using the form provided.

Grades 8-12

Power Poetry

Join this community where young people of all backgrounds come together to process their emotions using poetry. Find challenges to write about social issues or to write a poem in only 140 characters. There are also lesson plans prepared for teachers.

This Week at TeachersFirst

We are excited to invite you to participate in our first spring session of OK2Ask® this Tuesday! Join us for our bi-monthly Twitter chat this Thursday and don't miss our blog post about teaching spoken word poetry. Finally, we kindly ask for your input in our weekly poll.