Welcome to PoetryMinute, poems for elementary school students for every day of the school year, written by today’s best children’s poets.
The poems on PoetryMinute.org can be read in an average of about one minute, making it easy to share a new poem in the classroom or at home each day. Some are humorous while others are more poignant. Many rhyme, while others are free verse, concrete poems, or verse forms such as haiku or limericks. In creating PoetryMinute, I have tried to provide poems of every variety to help give students an idea of the breadth of modern children’s poetry; to see what poetry can be, and to help them discover new styles of poetry to enjoy.
You can find poems on PoetryMinute in many different ways. You can click on the Older Posts and Newer Posts buttons links on each page to read the poems in order, or use the menu to look for Poems by Author, Poems by Date, or Poems by Title. Or you can use the Search box to look for poems by key words or author name.
Each poem also includes biographical information about the author so students can learn more about the poet who created the work, as well a link to the book where you can find the poem and more like it. In many cases, poets have also provided “About this Poem” background information, and even audio or video recordings, giving students even richer ways to experience their poems.
I hope you will take one minute out of your day to share poetry with children and help them to become lifelong lovers of the written word and literary arts.
— Kenn Nesbitt, Children’s Poet Laureate