Poetry Party

Sylvia Vardell chaired “Poetry Party! Celebrating 2009 NCTE Poetry Award Recipient Lee Bennett Hopkins,” which Ruth blogged a little bit about on Friday. This was by far the most fun I’ve ever had at an NCTE Session since it was complete with food, party favors, and distinguished children’s poets who all read original poetry paying tribute to the renowned Lee Bennett Hopkins.

100_4724 — Lee Bennett Hopkins (second in on the right) reacts to the anthology that was handed out in his honor. From left to right are Georgia Heard, Walter Dean Myers, Rebecca Kai Dotlitch, Lee Bennett Hopkins, and Sylvia Vardell.

100_4725 — Party Favors from the Poetry Party, which included the book of new poetry that surprised Lee Bennett Hopkins.

Dear One: A Tribute to Lee Bennett Hopkins ends with a quote from the great man himself, which is:

Poetry and I fit together. I can’t imagine being without it… It is food and drink, it is all seasons, it is the stuff of all existence. –LBH

Isn’t this what we hope all children will think about poetry when we engage them with it? Perhaps if we continue to share the anthologies Lee Bennett Hopkins creates and provide our students with authentic poetry writing experiences, they will come to adapt Hopkins’s feelings about poetry as well.