I thought to share this spine poem with the group today if you’ve not seen this on Facebook or Twitter. It’s the “spine poem” I put together of the resources I had pulled in advance of the NCTE-sponsored #nctechat. With five minutes before the chat was to begin, I thought, “Hey, a spine poem would make a nice feature image for the chat. Not only would we showcase some resources, but we could demonstrate that words are everywhere (this is really important when we find ourselves without the ability to find words).

Now, one of the drawbacks of spine poetry is that one has to silently communicate the intended line breaks that might get lost to the viewer on the other side of the poetic transaction. I’ve tried to scatter stack these before and it becomes a Jenga-like lesson in physics (particularly gravity). This is why I like to print my poems alongside of the stack (something I learned from appreciating Bob Rascka’s LEMONADE. Show the art. Share the poem.

 

“The Power of Poems”

 

Nurture

independent voices.

 

You know who:

 

poetry people.

 

People I’d like to keep–

hand in hand–

poem-making;

awakening the heart.

 

Let them be themselves:

 

word playgrounds.