Budding Poet

I recently asked for and received from my beautiful wife some collections of poetry by Billy Collins; and in honor of upcoming April (National Poetry Month), I've been reading some of them aloud to my family. (Geek alert: each day of April, our family is going to read aloud poetry with one another. I know, I know: it's not quite the same as gathering around a warm television for quality family time, but it's what English teachers do with [to?] their children.)

Abigail must have been inspired by my most recent reading, because she came upstairs this morning with her own original poem written in red pen on a large sheet of blue craft paper (truly a work of both literary and visual art), and she performed an oral interpretation (very dramatic, too) of it. The best I can do for you, however, is provide the text; you will have to imagine Miss Abigail reading it aloud in all her flair and glory. (It is an acrostic, by the way, so she was working with that constraint when deciding how to begin each line.)

"Dad, Mom"

Dignity is a charm.

Awesome is a pleasure.

Daughters are your best.

My best actor.

Owesome is a sunshine.

My children are my pleasure.

P.S. Sign up to be e-mailed a poem daily throughout April. For a poem per day throughout the school year, check out Poetry 180--or Poetry Daily for one daily throughout the calendar year. Or go to your local library and check out a good, old-fashioned book of poetry. If you were trained to fear or hate poems through your analysis of them in high school, you owe it to yourself to give the genre another try. Browse a bunch of them, find some that catch your attention to re-read, follow up on favorite poets, and go from there!