FREE CHOICE POETRY

Vardell, Sylvia, Janet Wong and Rich Arnold. Poetry Tag Time: 30 poems by 30 poets. Princeton, NJ. PoetryTagTime.com. 2011.

ISBN: 978-1-937057-01-5

Poetry Tag Time is an anthology of poems written by different authors. The book is in digital form and simply put, it is a great read for anyone who likes good poetry.

This book takes the words “Tag, you’re it!” to a whole new level. The manner in which this book works is that one poet writes a poem. At the end of the poem, the poet “tags” another poet. The poet that is “tagged,” must then write a poem which is connected to the first poem. This continues throughout the book and makes for entertaining reading. Many of the poets are well-known, award-winning poets such as Lee Bennett Hopkins, Nikki Grimes, Joyce Sidman and many others.

The poems in this digital selection are varied and every poem has great examples of poetic form such as rhyming, concrete and free verse poetry to funny and inspirational poems. For example, the poem “Maybe” by Joyce Sidman is a concrete poem about an egg and is shaped like an egg. Figurative language, such as the personification Lee Bennett Hopkins uses in his poem “Summer Fear,” is an excellent example for students. He writes, Roses cower/ Pansies crouch/ Sunflowers cling.

The poems are not indexed by their title but by the author in the order they were “tagged.” Due to the fact that each poem is based on the one before it, there is a relative organizational scheme to the book. The illustrations by Rich Arnold are simplistic and depict the subject of the poems.

SPOTLIGHT POEM:

After the Storm

Laura Purdie Salas

Ribbons of color

Arch

In a

Neverending

Backbend

Over the

World

This poem is a good example of an acrostic. To begin with, I would ask the students what they think a poem with this title would be about. After gathering some possibilities, I would display the poem and read it to the students and then have the students read it out loud with me. I would again ask them what they think this poem is talking about. I would tell them that this poem is an acrostic poem and explain to them that an acrostic poem is one in which certain letters in each line, spell a word. I would then ask them if they could spot the word this poem spells. After this, I would have them attempt to write their own acrostic