Suggests that reaching traumatized children by employing poetic metaphors is an effective means of resolving trauma. Notes that, since poetry is frequently written in figurative language, traumatized children understand and relate to this communication concept. (RS)

Argues that the dichotomous nature of poetry may lend itself well to the complementary structural deficits of well-defined borderline personality disordered patients. Suggests that the emotive aspects of the poem may permit the patient to engage in the work, whereas the more rational, structured aspects of the poem facilitate personality…

Explores children's working knowledge of narrative, scientific, and poetic genres. Finds that children had significantly more experience with narrative genres than either scientific or poetic genres; and possessed more knowledge of text structure than micro-level features such as cohesion markers. Contributes to theorizing genre learning as a…

Explores the sensory and emotional aspects of attention and their implications for teaching, learning, and research. Uses poetry and autobiographical information to explore ways to teach attention and the relationship between attention and art. (SK)

Surveys previous approaches to free verse. Proposes a new method of articulating the diversity of free verse. Discusses paired poems to show the kinds of things that this new method gives educators to say when they want to talk about the verse of free verse poetry. (RS)

Argues that English folk verse is tightly patterned at the level of the quatrain, and rhythmic cadences are arranged in nonrandom, essentially strategic fashion. Examines why 26 truncation patterns are adhered to consistently through multiple stanzas. Explains the relevance of optimality theory to the study of quatrain types, developing an…

Discusses the deliberate use of code switching for literary expression. Identifies and illustrates shared pragmatic functions of conversational and literary code switching, with particular reference to the alternation of languages in Chicano/a Spanish/English poetry. (Author/VWL)

Suggests that composing "haiku" requires a discipline in a person's thinking and emoting patterns similar to that of a general semantics system for training people to make sense. Describes how such haiku are written and gives some guidelines to help individuals create their own. (PA)

Describes a method of teaching poetry in which students are handed random volumes of poetry and instructed to browse through them, starting with the first poem and not stopping until they find one that engages them. Reports that on average students browse through 22 poems before finding one they like. Gives excerpts from five student responses to…

Discusses a survey of ekphrastic writing (poetry that takes its inspiration from visual art) by contemporary poets that "barely scratches the surface" of a genre as varied as the writers who employ it. Points to the rich interactions and crossovers that occur when "word-folk" try to express their encounters with the work of "image-folk." (SG)

Draws on the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins to explore and celebrate a life in composition. Outlines possibilities for individual renewal, particularly through the process of mentoring new members. (SG)

Examines four characteristics (brevity, straightforward diction, contemplative mood, and autobiographical content) of classical Chinese poetry, to show how classical Chinese poetry is appropriate for use in many poetry therapy contexts. Includes an 8-item annotated list of sources. (SR)

Notes that teachers and writers across the country were called upon to share poems and prose that they had turned to in the days following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Notes that the response was a testament to literature's ability to transform experience of events as well as its capacity to be transformed, to be rendered anew by tragedy.…

Presents Part Two of the ongoing series Letters to a Young Writer where poet and professor Susan Mitchell corresponds with a contemporary composer as a means of exploring the relationship between poetry and the human voice. Reflects on the role of the poet in a civilization, a "habitat," under attack. (SG)

This workshop offers activities to teach students about poetry. After describing haiku as a brief snapshot rather than a story, it explains how to teach poetry using an attached reproducible and poster. The tear-out reproducible sheet teaches students how to write their own haiku, offering a sample one as a model. The poster presents three sample…