30 Poets/Day 20 - Jane Yolen and Brod Bagert

Teachers and personification are well treated by Jane Yolen and Brod Bagert here at the 2/3 mark of National Poetry Month and 30 Poets/30 Days. Sure, the fun goes on all year in these parts - and for every poet who's part of this and probably most of you, as well - but it's so fun to have even more people celebrating poetry for a spell, too. So, today let's celebrate with Jane and Brod... and poetry party on!

My Teacher
by
Jane Yolen

My teacher's tall,
My teacher's small,
My teacher's white,
Black, tan.
My teacher is a woman,
My teacher is a man.

My teacher's thin,
My teacher's fat,
My teacher's in-between.
My teacher's always very nice.
Sometimes my teacher's mean.

My teacher has a quiet voice,
My teacher's voice is loud
And you can hear her speaking out
Above the wildest crowd.

My teacher is a riot.
My teacher never smiles.
My teacher lives right near the school.
My teacher travels miles.

My teacher's younger than my mom.
My teacher's very old.
My teacher's hands are nice and warm.
My teacher's hands are cold.

But when I'm feeling lonely, scared,
Or having a bad day
I take my teacher's hand and then
Those feelings go away.

©2009 Jane Yolen. All rights reserved.
(click here to see the original post and comments)

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              Personification
How to Make a Poem that Flies
                      by
                Brod Bagert

If you want to put some life in a poem,
a little extra heart,
you might find that personification
is a pretty good place to start.

Make things act like they’re alive!
It’s a poetry delight.
Watch how I use it now to say—
“It was a stormy night.”

     The clouds began to growl!

     The wind began to cry!

     The moon got scared and disappeared,

     she didn’t say goodbye.

So in your poems, or in your prose,
or in your conversation
look for little clever ways
to insert a personification.

It’ll get to be a habit,
one of those everyday things,
one of the ways a poet learns
to give a poem its wings.

Then if your poem can find someone
to read its words out loud,
those wings will fill with air and soar
above the highest cloud.

© 2010 Brod Bagert. All rights reserved.
(click here to see the original post and comments)

Yesterday gave us poems by Arnold Adoff and David L. Harrison. Tomorrow... Greg Pincus and Tracy Vaughn Zimmer.

Please click here for more information about this year's edition of 30 Poets/30 Days, including how to follow along.