Poems for Graduation, Juneteenth, and LGBTQA+ Pride Month

June 2021

Many students across the country are celebrating their end of year accomplishments. Read and share these poems for graduation, and browse more kid-friendly poems:

“For the Graduation [Bolinas, 1972]” by Robert Creeley
“Dreams” by Langston Hughes
“A New Year's Greeting to a College Senior” by George Marion McClellan
“Move” by Alicia Ostriker
“Ongoing” by Jenny Xie
“Aspiration” by Henrietta Cordelia Ray
“When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities” by Chen Chen

Celebrate Juneteenth and honor the work of Black poets by bringing their poetry into the classroom. Browse lesson plans featuring poems by Black poets, and find more poems for Juneteenth.

Poems for LGBTQ+ Pride Month

June is LGBTQ+ Pride Month. For the occasion, we’ve put together a collection of kid-friendly poems written by LGBTQ+ poets. Browse more poems and resources for Pride Month, and browse l esson plans.

“That boy is my son & I am his only father
Even when I am no one”

—David St. John, “In the High Country”

Celebrate Father’s Day on June 20 with a collection of poems for kids, featuring poets such as Robert Hayden, Tina Chang, Li-Young Lee, and more.

Monday, May 2
Monday, May 9

Monday, May 16
Monday, May 23
Monday, May 30

“Asi” by Claudia Castro Luna
“f rom Grandmother’s Garden” by Meena Alexander
“Music from Childhood” by John Yau
“Rootless” by Jenny Xie
“In Praise of Dreams” by Gary Soto

This month’s poetic term is political poetry, or poetry that is related to activism, protest, and social concern, or that is commenting on social, political, or current events.

Summer: Poems for Kids

More poems for graduation

Last year, we launched Summer Camp, a four-week summer newsletter series that engages students and young people with poetry and meaningful activities that can be done from home.

Summer Camp will be distributed weekly on Tuesdays beginning in July, and will feature activities from our Teach This Poem series, as well as writing prompts from poets Nickole Brown and Jessica Jacobs and their book, Write It: 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire.

Sponsored Content

Sonorous and expertly paced, the poems in Michael Kleber-Diggs's Worldly Things offer needed guidance on ways forward—toward radical kindness and socially responsible poetics. To request a desk copy to teach in your classroom, email deskcopy@milkweed.org.

Sponsored Content

Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Margaret Gibson, Poet Laureate of Connecticut and a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, includes poems that go far beyond Connecticut to the whole ecosystem we humans share. Learn more and purchase a copy of the anthology here.

Teachers, thank you for your work 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.

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Poems for Graduation, Juneteenth, and LGBTQA+ Pride Month

Older messages

"Who Hurt You" by LA Warman

"Voice Clear As" by Kemi Alabi

Poems for Juneteenth

"In the ن of it all" by Kamelya Omayma Youssef

"to give the thing a name that belongs to something else" by Hao Guang Tse

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