Poetry Comes to Life with Poetry Alive!

We've come to the end of our celebration of National Poetry Month and hope you have enjoyed our focus on all aspects of poetry. Today, we look at an organization that "returns to the bardic tradition of long ago..."

There’s nothing quite like seeing a talented performer breathe life into a wonderful piece of literature. Poetry Alive!, a poetry performance group, gives schools the opportunity to bring that experience to their students. The organization, which was founded nearly thirty years ago, sends two-person teams of performers around the country and the world to perform poems for children and teenagers. There are specific programs tailored to students in elementary, middle, and high school, which include poems to suit the different cognitive skills and tastes of each age group. Poetry Alive! makes kids think, but it also makes them laugh, gasp, chime in, and move around. Audience participation is a hallmark of the program, and students often have the opportunity to call out parts of the poems or take the stage to act out poems alongside the performers. The energy and passion Poetry Alive! lends to the genre is electric, and students leave performances nearly crackling with enthusiasm.

Schools must book Poetry Alive! to give students a chance to see the performances; information can be found on various links from their home page. Visitors can also access videos of poem performances and learn more general information about the organization.

Even students who have never gotten to see Poetry Alive! in person can submit their original poetry for consideration in the regular Poem of the Month contest. And Poetry Alive!’s Poetry Research Page  contains a wealth of kid-friendly information on poets and poems. Also worth a visit is the Poetry For Fun page, which will direct youngsters to fun destinations on the web where they can write magnetic poetry online, access poet Kenn Nesbitt’s lessons on writing funny poems, and more.