tonight i hosted one of my favorite teen programs.  it began a few years ago after i unsuccessfully hosted a poetry reading night where the few people who brought their own poetry and were brave enough to read it aloud prefaced their readings with “this isn’t very good, but…” and i decided that we should embrace the bad poetry!  (or at least not spend so much time worrying about whether it’s good.)  so the next poetry night that i hosted was called “bad poetry night” and we got together and wrote “bad” poetry.  (or silly poetry if you prefer)  some people have given me flack about the program name (“but what if we like poetry and want to write or bring good poetry?”) and to them i say, “bring it! and then join us in having some fun with words and playing in the jungle gym of english.  we’ll have a good time–i promise!”

although attendance isn’t always enormous, there’s never been less than 3 (tonight we had 6) and everyone is very enthusiastic and much laughter is heard and when it’s over they ask, “when will the next one be?”  to me, that is the mark of a very successful program.  i even overheard during one of the programs, a teen comment, “i wish my english teacher would do stuff like this” and i thought, “why don’t they?”  i mean, yes it’s irreverent and silly, but these kids are actually excited about writing!  does that happen often?
so, in case you’re curious, here are a few of the activities we did tonight at b.p.n.3*

haiku stirfry–each person writes one or two haiku, then cuts the poem into strips–two 5-syllable strips and one with 7 syllables.  all of the 5-syllable lines are mixed together, ditto for 7, then everyone draws as many lines as they donated and rearranges the lines to make new poetry.  sometimes some really great lines fall together. sometimes, they make no sense at all.

the anti-poem–write a poem about something that normally is not a subject of poems.  my favorites from tonight were an overhead projector and an armpit.

sarcastic concrete–write a concrete poem in the opposite shape of its subject.  for instance–a poem about the sun in the shape of the moon.  some of these can be very intriguing, like the one about being angry that was written in the shape of a smiling face.

the energy in the room with these writing teens is such fun.  they are having such a blast and it’s all about words and writing–what better subject for a library program?

*for those of you readers who are children’s librarians, this is a sneak peek into the 2009 summer library program manual where i described this program in the chapter i wrote.  this blog post includes a few bonus new ideas i’ve developed since turning in my chapter last fall.  enjoy!