Lost: Poetry - Have You Seen It?

What a morning we've had with Second Class!
Since January is Poetry month and we're all finding it a bit mysterious, we decided to look into it, or rather to look for it.
We kicked off with a really interesting brainstorming session where we wondered about things like What does a poem look like? Can it be about anything? What does it do? Suggested answers, in no particular order, included: rhymes, patterns, feelings, mystical creatures, doom and death, detail, lines, breath and nervousness. These 8 year olds are on the ball.

We then had a look at what wasn't poetry. After all, what's the difference between 'The Friendly Cinnamon Bun' by Russel Hoban and the cookery book version? Or between the nursery rhyme Wiggly Woo and a few lines from the National Geographic website on earthworms?
We were now ready to sort through a big bunch of texts (some found in poetry books, some elsewhere) (some in French!), in groups, and decide what belonged to poetry what didn't.

This wasn't a test, there was no 'wrong' answer, each group could make their own decisions. It was so interesting seeing what was selected (nearly everybody went for short rhyming texts), but it was equally fascinating to see what wasn't. Shape poetry was a flop, for instance. Presentation mattered: anything illustrated with photos was automatically deemed, in some groups, as 'facts'. Some texts were selected on the basis of having illustrations of cute bunnies or nasty dinosaurs.

I then asked each group to vote for their favourite poem and tell us what they had liked in it. 'Good rhyming' was clearly high on the kids' checklist, even when they picked (as one group did) something in French (which they don't speak). Subject matter played a part, while one group liked the image that Margaret Mahy's 'My Sister' painted in their heads ('My sister is remarkably light/ (…) We use her instead of a kite'). We noted that the poem worked even if you didn't have a sister yourself. We talked about poems that were funny and poems that used repetition and made you want to dance and wriggle.

After all that thinking it was time to move around, if not wriggle and dance (but that was ok too) and launch into our poetry treasure hunt! Everyone came back with a series of words that belonged just to them and was invited to combine them in a striking image. Each kid added a stanza (usually illustrated) (sometimes a full-blown epic) to a collective piece that grew and grew, over three long hall tables.
Criminal hairdressers, colour-changing dogs, evil rubber ducks (they seem to be a thing), football-playing skeletons, officers in rubber duck costumes (told you), vampires, peacocks, the moon, and much, much more made an appearance in our crazy poem!
There was a lot in it, for everyone, (enough for 2 sessions, even), but this bunch was game and almost no-one noticed when the bell went for break!
Take a bow, poets!