April is National Poetry Month! First celebrated in 1996, the Academy of American Poets organized the holiday to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. During Poetry Month, help your students explore poems, poets, and poetry with these Listenwise stories.
Current Events:
- Young Inaugural Poet on Her Journey
- Poetry Out Loud
- Poetic Surprises
- What Is Love?
- Celebrating Poetry
- Poet Gwendolyn Brooks Inspired Young Poets
- America’s First Black Poet
- Maya Angelou, Poet, Author and Civil Rights Activist, Dies at 86
- Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass
- A Friend Remembers Robert Frost
- The Life and Poetry of Sylvia Plath
- Lord Tennyson and the Real Light Brigade
- Rudyard Kipling’s Poetry
- Love Poems from Kids
- Connecting through Poetry
- Bonnie & Clyde Poetry
- Sheltering in Poems
- Rhythm Elevates Poetry and Song Beyond Written Word
- Tribute to Romantic Love and Keats
- Shakespeare’s Private Sonnets
- T.S. Eliot and Modernism
- Dante’s Inferno Comes Alive in Latest English Translation
- Emily Dickinson, the Reclusive Poet
- War Poets of World War I
- Haiku about Summer
- Who’s the Real Shakespeare?
- Kobe’s Teacher
- Francis Scott Key: Lawyer, Poet, and Creator of “The Star Spangled Banner”
Lessons
- A Poet Celebrates “The Owed”
- Poetry and Basketball in “The Crossover”
- Letters from Langston Hughes
- Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
- Persian Book of Kings
- Edgar Allan Poe’s Mysterious “Raven”
- A Letter from Phillis Wheatley
- Puritan and Poet Anne Bradstreet
- ‘Beowulf,’ Paganism and Christianity
- Translations of ‘Dante’s Divine Comedy’
- Poetry Reflecting World War I
- The Life of Langston Hughes
- Poet Seamus Heaney
- Modernist Poet T.S. Eliot
- The Life of Sylvia Plath
- Maya Angelou’s Life and Legacy
- Poetry for the Digital Age
- Edgar Allan Poe Still Captures the Imagination
- A Flowering Tribute To Emily Dickinson
- Birth of Our National Anthem
- Author and Poet Kwame Alexander
Other Poetry Resources
- A wide collection of poems, poet biographies, and lesson plans from the Academy of American Poets
- A poetry podcast collection from The Poetry Foundation
- People sharing their personal poetry favorites from The Favorite Poem Project
- Resources for teaching poetry from the National Council of Teachers of English
- Poetry lesson plans from ReadWriteThink
- Poetry resources from Reading Rockets
- Poetry Appreciation Collections from Share My Lesson
- Introducing and Reading Poetry with English Language Learners from Colorin Colorado
- From Facing History