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Welcome poets. Welcome dreamers, storytellers, Rhymers, schemers. Welcome verse-niks, prose creators, Word-o-philes and fabricators. Welcome if you love to write. Explore and enjoy the site. |
Laura Shovan is a Maryland poet, author and educator. Her alter ego is the popular Mrs. Poems, who delights in teaching poetry workshops in elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the region. She was recently awarded the Clarinda Harriss Poetry Prize. Visit Laura's blog Authoramok.com |
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Why make time for poetry?
Writing poetry, particularly with elementary schoolers, is often limited to holiday acrostics and “easy” forms like haiku, or limericks. During a residency, I spend between three and six days at a school. It is a big commitment of time and resources for schools -- but when we work deeply with poetry, students’ writing leaps off the page. Children begin to see themselves as poets, and many of them bring this new confidence to their classroom writing.
Poetry in Elementary School
Many Maryland elementary schools recently adopted the 6+1 Trait Writing Model (see source note below). Some of the teachers I work with have been amazed at the way their students synthesize several of these traits when writing poetry. Read more
News
Award-winning poetry chapbook Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, comes out for National Poetry Month, April 2010.
". . . I loved the sharp and warm observations of the small crucial shifts within a moment that are the heart of change. Dishes in the sink. Cars parked beside porches. “A cup of light upstairs.” A six year old scaling a snow bank to meet his father. Picking peaches. Listening to plants. Noting them listening back." - Jeannine Atkins, poet and children's author Read the review on her blog.
June 22 in Canton to celebrate CityLit Press's first two books. Laura will be reading her poems. Check out the invitation. July 12 is LakeFest -- Part of the Columbia Festival of the Arts. Laura will be at the HoCoPoLitSo and Maryland Writers Association tent -- selling and signing books, but also running a family poetry activity. Poetry Pops with Laura Shovan National Poetry Month: Laura is conducting a 50 state tour of poets laureate on her blog, AuthorAmok.com Laura read from Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, at Baltimore’s CityLit Festival, April 17 at Pratt Library. She was joined by Maryland’s Poet Laureate, Stanley Plumly. Laura is leading a literary salon for the Little Patuxent Review, “’Something Else Is Alive’ – The Power of Animal Metaphors,” May 10, 7:30-8:30 PM |
