Poetry Explosions!

Today, 5th graders came to the LMC and exploded Emily Dickinson's Hope Is The Thing With Feathers.

 This image is courtesy of Amherst College Library

Exploding poetry is a technique used to create individual meaning to a poem. Ms. Steiner, Mrs. Murray and I attended a poetry conference in March and explored this exciting technique. Traditionally, the reader examines the poem and is encouraged to pick out a few lines, thoughts, or phrases that appeal to him or her. Then the reader takes on the role of writer and adds his or her own thoughts. The poem is read again inserting the writer's work with the orginal author resulting a a poetry explosion! Read Emily Dickinson's poem below:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.