April is National Poetry month. The Academy of American Poets introduced this in 1996 because they wanted to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in America. Their website is their main hub for information. Starting out, the holiday was brought together by a group of publishers, booksellers, librarians, literary organizations, poets, and teachers. Together they discussed the need for the holiday. They were encouraged by the success of Black History Month in February and Women’s History Month in March. In 2001 they voted for a poet to be placed on a postage stamp. They started publishing a Poem Of The Day on Poem.org in 2006. They have since started the Dear Poet Project where kids may be able to publish works on their website. Poetry is important to learn because it emphasized symbols and expresses emotion, aesthetic, and observation on the world. Defying the criticism that poetry is pretentious, it can be a highly effective way of displaying a message. The right formation of words can create a powerful read. Poetry in classrooms can provoke feelings of trust and empathy among students and can be a healthy outlet for their emotions as well as improve speaking, reading, listening, and language understanding. Despite these advantages, poetry is commonly something that educators are forced to sweep under the rug because they must prioritize the curriculum.

We asked some of the Heritage teachers what some of their favorite poems were.

Miss Kitty: William Butler Yeats, Maya Angelou, William Shakespeare, James Dickey.

Mrs. Daut: Hilda “H.D.” Doolittle.

Mrs. Johnson: Sylvia Plath.

Mrs. Toole: Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe.

Mrs. Vest: Thomas Gray, William Wordsworth, and new favorite Neil Hilborn

Mrs. Hughes – T.S. Eliot

Mrs. Jacobson – Walt Whitman and Gabriela Mistral

Ms. Elenbarger – Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, T.S. Elliot, JRR Tolkien, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Mrs. May – Emily Dickinson

Mrs. Shepard – Langston Hughes

Mr. Moore – Robert Frost

Mr. Vest – William Butler Yeats