Poem-a-Day - Poetry for Back to School

August 2024

dear poet

“Stay close to the earth, Pepper. It listens to a poet’s heart so well,” Nikky Finney (page 89).

The Dear Poet 2024 booklet is here! We received 2,483 letters from students in thirty-six states, eight countries, and 172 schools.

We are grateful to all the educators who use the program and for each and every student letter we receive.

Read, download, and share the 2024 Dear Poet Booklet. Stay tuned for Dear Poet 2025, coming late this fall.

teach this poem

Teach This Poem returns in September. Teach This Poem is a newsletter series featuring weekly poems, interdisciplinary primary sources, and activities designed to help teachers quickly and easily bring poetry into the classroom.

Sign up and get a new lesson plan every Monday. Browse more than three hundred past lessons, and check out the five most popular lessons from the 2023–24 school year:

“Without” by Joy Harjo
“Students of Movement” by Kealoha
“Let There Be” by Manny Loley
“The Wild Swans” by Li Qingzhao, translated from the Chinese by James Whitall
“Gratitude List” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Teach This Poem Volume I: The Natural World

Published through Routledge’s Eye on Education series and collected together for the first time in print, these Teach This Poem lessons offer accessible entry points to teaching poetry in the classroom, inviting readers to reflect on the natural world through prescient and urgent poems.

Aligned with current standards and pedagogy, the lessons in this book will inspire educators and their students alike.

Get your copy today! Use the discount code AAP20 by September 19 for 20% off.

poems to read and share

As the summer ends and a new school year begins, share the following poems for back-to-school, and browse more kid-friendly poems:

“Give Yourself Some Flowers” by Marcus Amaker
“The Creative Drive” by Catherine Barnett
“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks
“Ghazal of Oranges” by Jan-Henry Gray
“& After the Power Came Back” by Brenda Hillman
“The World Book” by Patricia Hooper
“The Testing-Tree” by Stanley Kunitz
“Nonsense Alphabet” by Edward Lear
“The Sentence” by Nathan McClain
“Students” by Fabio Pusterla, translated from the Italian by Will Schutt
“Writing Promp t” by Michael Torres

Summer: Poems for Kids

S chool: Poems for Kids

related resources

Teachers, thank you for your work in bringing poetry into the classroom year-round. We’re happy to be able to offer hundreds of free lesson plans, essays, and other resources, and we wish you and your students health and safety.

The Academy of American Poets

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New York, NY 10038

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Poem-a-Day - Poetry for Back to School

Older messages

2024 Summer Books

"How to Witness a Miracle Without Converting" by Ajanaé Dawkins

"Incurable" by Dorothy Parker

"Peter Quince at the Clavier" by Wallace Stevens

"My Hole. My Whole." by Sam Sax

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