National Poetry Month Celebration: List Poems

 

Read, Discuss, Do! is celebrating list poems this week! List poems are exactly what they sound like -- poems written as lists! A list poem can be a list of anything real or imagined. They can be lists of people or places, ideas, things, actions, even emotions. Many list poems are silly. Many of them rhyme. But they can cover all sorts of topics and themes, and rhyming is completely optional. We hope that you will read some examples of list poems this week and try writing one or two of your own.

It's Raining Pigs and Noodles by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by James Stevenson, isn't specifically a book of list poems, but it's got some great examples of list poems in it. And the title poem is a silly, rhyming list poem that you'll be sure to enjoy.

Underneath My Bed: List Poems by Brian P. Cleary, illustrated by Richard Watson. This book is all about list poems! What they are, how to write them, and a lot of fun ones to read as examples. 

Falling Down the Page: A Book of List Poems, edited by Georgia Heard. This is a diverse mix of list poems of all sorts of topics by a bunch of different poets.

Example of a list poem:

"Sick" by Shel Silverstein

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.

Read the whole poem on poets.org. 

For more on writing list poems, see this post on poetry4kids.com.