Politi National Poetry Month

Terrance McArthur, Politi

How do you celebrate National Poetry Month? The Leo Politi Library is using several methods. Stacks o' Poems has printed poems hanging from the library shelves. Each one is tied to the Dewey Decimal Number of that area: "The Grave" by Robert Blair is found in 133 (Ghosts); Henry Fielding's "Roast Beef of Old England is next to 641.5 (Cooking), and where else would you find "Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?)" but 822.33 (Shakespeare)?

Pick a Peck of Poems is a display of poetry books that can be checked out by patrons, along with more printed-out poems and the third part of the Poetry Month activities: Write Your Own Poems!

The first week of WYOP featured Haiku poems. An instructional sheet by the main display and in the YA area contained samples and the format for writing haiku. Twelve patron-written and staff-written haiku poems were pinned onto the display! The second week's poetic form is the cinquain, a five-line poem featuring nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Clerihews (4-line, semi-biographical, non-rhythmic, irregular-line-length poems) are scheduled after that. Concrete poems (shaped poems that resemble the outline of the subject) will wind up the month.

It's interactive, fun, and patrons are exploring the stacks, finding more than poems on the shelves!

NOYS: Spine Poetry

It's National Poetry Month! Have you encouraged your library's teens to submit a poem to our contest yet? Sitting down and writing out poetry can be difficult for some, but here's something anyone can do and it's a super easy on-the-spot program idea. Have teens go to the bookshelves and skim the titles on the spines. Which can go together to form a poem? Here is an example of spine poetry.


Every Girl Tells a Story
Just listen,
Word after word after word
My sisters' voices,
Nothing but the truth.
Wild girl
Outspoken
Tender
The courage to be yourself
Things left unsaid 
I hadn't meant to tell you this
Nevermind 
Her stories




Try it! It doesn't even have to be a program--you could do it yourself as a great 3-D display. Have fun, and take pictures--we can post them here and on the wiki. If you need help posting the photos you can always email them to anyone in Youth Services.

Happy National Poetry Month!

NOYS: Teen Poetry Contest

April is National Poetry Month! Youth Services is excited to bring back our annual Teen Poetry Contest. We’ve made a few changes this year, so please note the guidelines below.

Teen Poetry Contest

• The contest runs from April 1-30.


• All poems must be submitted electronically using the form on our teen website, Read.Watch.Listen. Visit http://www.fresnoteens.org/ to see rules and to submit poetry.


• There are two categories: middle school and high school. Participants must be between 7th-12th grade. One winner from each category will receive Barnes & Noble gift cards.


• Poems will be published on our website as we receive them. They will be published in a book, available for free at all library branches, after the contest is over and winners have been chosen.


• Each poet’s name will appear on our website as a link. The link will take you to that poet’s poems.


• Students can submit as many poems as they like but only one will count for the contest (chosen at the discretion of the judges unless otherwise designated by poet).


• Only one poem per person will be printed in the book.


• Special judges are FCPL staff James Tyner & Will Cooper; we are also delighted to have award-winning author Margarita Engle as a judge.

Please encourage teens in your branches to participate.