“Maya Angelou, an inspirational American poet, crafted a poem from a child’s perspective about all the frightening things in her world. Although this poem showcases many things that frighten a child, the greater theme in this poem is that no matter the obstacles we face in life, we can overcome them. The repetition of “life doesn’t frighten me at all” reinforces that theme.” - from family friend poems
A poem inspired by Shakespeare’s colourful insults. When foul language needn't be so foul. Laura Mucha - in her own words - I’m an ex-lawyer turned award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Some of my writing is funny (or at least I hope it is…), but some is serious and addresses important things that aren’t always talked about. I often think about how we live and what we can do to make our lives, and the lives of others, a little bit better. My writing has won multiple international awards and been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world, including virtually every newspaper in the UK. My books include Rita’s Rabbit, Dear Ugly Sisters, Being Me, and We Need to Talk About Love / Love Factually (which Richard Curtis describes as ‘much better and more useful than my film’). I’m currently working on several books for children and adults (due to be published by Walker, Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury and Audible). When not writing, I spend my time visiting schools around the world, teaching creative writing and working with organisations such as the such as the National Literacy Trust, Royal Society of Medicine and UNICEF to try to improve the lives of children.
Hailing from Vancouver, Raoul Fernandes won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 2016 for his debut collection of poems, Transmitter and Receiver. His early childhood was spent in Dubai, U.A.E., which he has spoken of being influential through the “sparseness of the desert landscape, the tension between the many groups of people there. The muezzin chanting in the evenings.” He moved to Tsawwassen in 1993, where he was led to poetry through music. His poem, “When the Teeth of the Gears Meet” confronts the mechanistic nature of our lives and interactions, and a desire to escape.
Funny poem about sounds. Laura Mucha - in her own words - I’m an ex-lawyer turned award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Some of my writing is funny (or at least I hope it is…), but some is serious and addresses important things that aren’t always talked about. I often think about how we live and what we can do to make our lives, and the lives of others, a little bit better. My writing has won multiple international awards and been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world, including virtually every newspaper in the UK. My books include Rita’s Rabbit, Dear Ugly Sisters, Being Me, and We Need to Talk About Love / Love Factually (which Richard Curtis describes as ‘much better and more useful than my film’). I’m currently working on several books for children and adults (due to be published by Walker, Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury and Audible). When not writing, I spend my time visiting schools around the world, teaching creative writing and working with organisations such as the such as the National Literacy Trust, Royal Society of Medicine and UNICEF to try to improve the lives of children.
Laura Mucha - in her own words - I’m an ex-lawyer turned award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Some of my writing is funny (or at least I hope it is…), but some is serious and addresses important things that aren’t always talked about. I often think about how we live and what we can do to make our lives, and the lives of others, a little bit better. My writing has won multiple international awards and been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world, including virtually every newspaper in the UK. My books include Rita’s Rabbit, Dear Ugly Sisters, Being Me, and We Need to Talk About Love / Love Factually (which Richard Curtis describes as ‘much better and more useful than my film’). I’m currently working on several books for children and adults (due to be published by Walker, Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury and Audible). When not writing, I spend my time visiting schools around the world, teaching creative writing and working with organisations such as the such as the National Literacy Trust, Royal Society of Medicine and UNICEF to try to improve the lives of children.
Natalie Diaz is a female American Latina and Mojave Poet. Her poem “WHY I HATE RAISINS” is about reconciliation and the postcolonial legacy. It tells the story of raisins and their connection to her mother and herself. What is a moment in your life where you have made a realization that changed your perspective?
Citizen by Claudia Rankine is a mixed media book. A collection of poetry, images and other art. She examines the Black experience from the second person, along with an updating list of names for the Black lives lost due to police brutality. “You are in the dark, in the car...” puts us in the perspective of a Black American living life in vignettes separated with a slash. Write a scenario using the second person about a personal experience.
For the love of poetry
Fiona Tinwei Lam is the current City of Vancouver Poet Laureate and an literacy advocate. A former lawyer, she has authored children’s books, published her work in over 40 anthologies and been selected three times for BC’s Poetry in Transit.
Her work is memorable and authentic, highlighting her concerns for the world in which we live and the value of a distinct perspective.
What are the lessons that have been passed down to you? Explore those lessons in the form of a poem.
There are all sorts of different types of ways to read. Speed reading. Close reading. Reading for school. Reading for fun. Silent reading and reading aloud. In the poem, Reading, by Jacqueline Woodson, we learn about a girl who loves to take her time, reading a book over and over, to savour the story.
Jacqueline Woodson, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, is one of America’s most respected children’s poets. The author of numerous picture books and verse novels, she served as the poet laureate of the United States, traveling across the country to read and write with children.
Write a poem about the type of reader you are. How do you consume books? How do you absorb stories?
It can be hard to decide when to stop editing and changing a piece of writing and trust that it’s ready for readers to see! In How Do I Know When A Poem Is Finished, writer Naomi Shihab Nye imagines a poem is like a room and wonders when you should stop decorating the room and leave it alone.
Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye has been publishing poems for children and adults for over forty years. She writes and teaches in San Antonio, Texas.
Answer the question in the poem’s title. How do YOU know when a poem (or another piece of writing) is finished? When do you stop editing and share it with readers?
April 2 is the first day of the Muslim holy month of fasting.
From the Quran, "The month of Ramadan is that in which was revealed the Quran; a guidance for mankind, and clear proofs of the guidance, and the criterion (of right and wrong). And whosoever of you is present, let him fast the month, and whosoever of you is sick or on a journey, a number of other days. Allah desires for you ease; He desires not hardship for you; and that you should complete the period, and that you should magnify Allah for having guided you, and that perhaps you may be thankful."
Poet, editor, and prose writer Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian descent and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. He earned a BA and MA from the University at Albany-SUNY and an MFA from New York University.
April 2 is International Children's Book Day, so what better way to celebrate both Poetry Month and International Book Day than by reading a poem about books? Read the poem "I Opened a Book" by Julia Donaldson. Then, think of one of your favourite books you've ever read. Can you write a poem about what it was like to enter into that book, that story, that world?
Born in Vancouver, BC, Wayde Compton has been an active part of the black writing community in that city since the mid-1990s. He is the co-founder of the first black-oriented press in Western Canada, Commodore Books, as well as of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial project, concerning the historical black neighbourhood in Vancouver. He teaches Creative Writing at Douglas College and his publications include poetry, short stories and non-fiction. This poem, from his collection Performance Bond, reckons with the troubling legacy of Canada’s immigration policies.
What is the history of one of your communities in your city or town? What interesting stories can you find there to write about?
We don’t always fit in. Sometimes we look different, sometimes we sound different, or smell, or see or even taste differently than others. And sometimes we try so hard to fit in, that we can bamboozle others that we do. Yet at the end of the day, even the strongest metal bulletproof shell hosts a beautiful human soul, unique and special in its own right. Laura Mucha - in her own words - I’m an ex-lawyer turned award-winning poet, author and children’s advocate. Some of my writing is funny (or at least I hope it is…), but some is serious and addresses important things that aren’t always talked about. I often think about how we live and what we can do to make our lives, and the lives of others, a little bit better. My writing has won multiple international awards and been featured on TV, radio and public transport, as well as in hospitals, hospices, prisons, books, magazines and newspapers around the world, including virtually every newspaper in the UK. My books include Rita’s Rabbit, Dear Ugly Sisters, Being Me, and We Need to Talk About Love / Love Factually (which Richard Curtis describes as ‘much better and more useful than my film’). I’m currently working on several books for children and adults (due to be published by Walker, Nosy Crow, Bloomsbury and Audible). When not writing, I spend my time visiting schools around the world, teaching creative writing and working with organisations such as the such as the National Literacy Trust, Royal Society of Medicine and UNICEF to try to improve the lives of children.
In The Skin You Live In, author Michael Tyler and illustrator David Lee Csicsko use powerful rhythms and rhymes to talk about the importance of loving ourselves no matter what we look like on the outside.
Imagine you woke up one day and discovered your skin had changed. Maybe it changed colour, texture, or thickness. Maybe it grew fur or scales! Write a story about what happens the day you have a new skin. How did others react? Did they treat you differently? Were you able to get your old skin back?
Justyce McAllister, the main character of this novel, experiences the discrimination one can face based on their race, when he finds himself in handcuffs. Even though he's a good student who's on the road to an Ivy-League school, he still finds himself the victim of racial profiling. As a reader, you get to see the story Justyce goes through, and his realization and understanding of what it means to be an African American child in America, as he experiences further micro-agressions and discrimination and navigates his life at his predominantly White school.
In October of 1991, the United States government announced a discovery of terrible and moving import in New York City. While digging the foundation of what would eventually become a Federal building in Manhattan, workers discovered—or rather, rediscovered—an intact burial site that proved to be an African American slave burial ground from the earliest days of New York’s history. Over 400 souls were buried on the site, which was later built over and forgotten. In response to community protests and organizing, the site has become a National Monument and can be visited. Yusef Komunyakaa’s provocative poem chronicles this site, imagining the forgotten dead below the hustle and bustle of modern New York. It reckons with America’s ghosts, and with their legacy.
Imagine what history and mysteries lie beneath your feet in your hometown. What about the past your community’s past might turn up if you started digging?
Arree Chung’s book Mixed: A Colorful Story shows how beautiful it is when different colours mix together instead of staying apart. It reminds us how our world is happier and healthier when people from many different cultures can mix together in friendship.
Arree Chung is a Chinese-American author and artist. He has written many picture books and runs a company called Storyteller Academy, which helps other people become authors too!
Write a story about two very different people, animals, or objects who become friends in the end.
The poem I Am Enough uses rhythm and rhyme to make us feel joyful and strong, no matter our skin colour, language, or body type. It was written by Grace Byers, an actress and author who lives in Los Angeles. As a kid, Grace was often bullied because both of her parents were deaf. I Am Enough reminds us that no matter what bullies say, we are wonderful and powerful--we are enough!
Write a poem, story, or letter to lift the spirits of someone who has been bullied.