Planting Our Poetry Garden
Poetry for Children of All Ages
Welcome to the Poetry Garden!
Friends of all ages are welcome to explore its tidy rows of treasures – and it may not be like other gardens you’ve seen before.
Here, you’ll find poems planted among the fruits and veggies. Inhale the sweet scent of flower-poems in full bloom. Feel the perfect plumpness of a tomato-poem as you pluck it from the vine. Take a closer look; you may even see some creature-poems crawling among the roots, buzzing around the blossoms, and fluttering between the leaves. What else do you see? Hear? Smell? Feel?
Everything you’ve found is part of the rich ecosystem that makes the Poetry Garden thrive – including us, the gardeners. We tend each plant with care and love; in return, Mother Nature shares her bounty with us.
So come, readers, dig your fingers into the soil and pull a poem from the Earth.
In each section, poems are presented in order of increasing reading level
Daisy Time
Marjorie Pickthall
Fallen in their brightness"
For children of all agesThe Violet
Jane Taylor
A modest violet grew"
For children of all agesDandelions
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
In your garbs of green and gold"
For children ages 10-13- Edward Dorn
On this plain resound"
For children ages 10-13Sea Poppies
H.D.
fluted with gold"
For children and teensI Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth
That floats on high o'er vales and hills"
For children and teens- Animated poem film from HBO's "A Child's Garden of Poetry"
For children and teens The Tradition
Jericho Brown
Fingers in dirt meant it was our dirt"
For teens and adults
I Eat My Peas with Honey
Anonymous
I've done it all my life."
For children of all ages- "Take all summer,
your ember
from the sun"
For children of all ages From Blossoms
Li-Young Lee
this brown paper bag of peaches"
For children and teens ages 10 and up- Joanie Mackowski
extends beneath the dinner table,"
For children and teens ages 10 and upBlack Cherries
W. S. Merwin
toward summer the young goldfinches"
For children and teens- Dorothy Keeley Aldis
Are thinking to begin"
For children and teensOne Bite
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
and for hours all you eat is sweet."
For teens and adultsBlackberry-Picking
Seamus Heaney
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen."
For teens and adults
Caterpillar ("Brown and furry")
Christina Rossetti
Caterpillar in a hurry"
For children of all ages[even with insects]
Kobayashi Issa
some can sing"
For children of all agesThe Worm
Ralph Bergengren
The worms are fat as anything."
For children of all agesOh, Fly
Jane Yolen
you flew
onto
my leaf"
For children of all agesThe Mayfly
Douglas Florian
In May or June."
For children of all agesFly, Dragonfly!
Joyce Sidman
climbed from the shallows "
For children of all agesFirefly
Jacqueline Woodson
For children of all ages- From Poetry Explorers, a series of poetry prompts and crafts activities for young poets and families.
For children of all ages
The Seedling
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Lay within its darksome bed"
For children of all agesThank You
Ross Gay
and barefoot in the frosty grass"
For children and teens ages 10 and upGreen-Thumb Boy
Marilyn Nelson
For teens and adults- Rhina P. Espaillat
black with it"
For teens and adults- From Poetry Explorers, a series of poetry prompts and crafts activities for young poets and families.
For children of all ages