Where Stars Meet People: Teaching and Writing Poetry in Conversation

This book is unique. It offers readers opportunities to explore the most common universal themes taught in secondary English Language Arts classrooms using poetry; however, it doesn’t simply suggest poems grouped by common themes. Each poetry section presents a poetic conversation among the poets on each of the given eight themes. One of the poets initiates each section with an original poem, and the next poet responds to the first, initial, poem. The other poets join the conversation responding to the first, second, or any of the poems previously included in this section. The poems feature the themes of poetry, places, nature, beauty, and harmony, love, loyalty and betrayal, home and family, loss and grief, and dreams and hopes for the future. The three final chapters aim to explain how to use these poems, and poetry in general, in the classrooms and beyond its walls; to invite novice and experienced poets to create various forms of poetry; and to share views on poetry, its teaching, reading, and writing. The various poetry forms are explored in this volume to create poems that help deliver the author’s message. All poems are written exclusively for a diverse readership of the book.