Rather than staring numbly at each other while we go through the motions of having an enjoyable meal together- why not spark some interest into what otherwise is becoming just another way to pass the time in an endless sea of sameness. Lucky for you, now is the perfect time to celebrate National Poetry Month.

April is National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month is a real thing. I swear I’m not making this up. Perhaps you remember a time when your elementary school aged child was required to go to school with a poem in his or her pocket and you frantically looked for something by Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein to fit the bill. Oh, so that’s what that homework assignment was all about. Yes, it must have been during National Poetry Month.

You may be asking yourself why on earth would we celebrate poetry for an entire month? I’ll tell you why. Back in the 1990’s, the idea of Black History Month (February) and Woman’s History Month (March) started to gain in popularity. This success inspired the Academy of American Poets, an organization comprised of booksellers, librarians, teachers, poets and literary associations to look for a way to mark the importance of poetry in our lives and to remember the great poets who created this poetry. The idea garnered so much popularity that in April 1996, President Bill Clinton proclaimed April, National Poetry Month. And just like that, POOF, here we are with something to celebrate.

Never were a fan of poetry? No problem. You can fake it by rattling off these fun facts to impress your kids:

• Haikus are the most popular poems (you remember those three line Japanese poems-  5 syllables in the first and third lines, 7 syllables in the second line).
• German poet Gottlob Burmann so despised the letter R  he never used it in his poetry or in his everyday conversation during the last 17 years of his life. Why not honor Mr. Burmann by banning the letter R from your dinner conversation? Let me know how that goes!
• ‘Metrophobia’ is the name for a fear of poetry. I think my kids suffer from this phobia!
• The longest poem is the ancient epic Indian poem called Mahabharata. It runs to over 100,000 lines and has about 1.8 million words.
• The epitaph on Emily Dickinson’s gravestone in Amherst, Massachusetts, composed by the poet herself, features just two words: ‘called back’.
• Anne Bradstreet was the first woman to be recognized as an accomplished poet in the British American colonies. After she died, her husband collected her poems and published them as a book, making her the first woman to have a published book in America.
• Rap is considered to be synchronized poetry. Not in my book, but hey, if it will get my kids talking about poetry…..

How To Make National Poetry Month A Dinner Time Celebration

When I mentioned to my two teenaged kids that we would be celebrating National Poetry month sometime this week, their moans were so loud and mournful you would have thought that I told them cell service was down and not expected to be restored for a month! Making poetry fun in my house was clearly going to be a challenge- a challenge I was ready to take head on and so can you. Here are some resources to get you started:

• • Limericks
  • Cool poems for teens
  • Interactive poetry site for students of all ages
  • Comprehensive site for all ages and types of poetry

Dinner Time Table Talk Activities

Now that you’ve added verse or two to your day , it’s time to bring a little levity and poetic license to your dinner table. All of these activities can be modified to be age appropriate for your family members.

• • Make a poetry jar. Each member of the family puts  3-5 poems in the jar and a different poem is read each night at some point during the meal. Discuss.
  • Sorry Mom- this one’s on you- print out a poem appropriate for each member of the family. Slip it under that person’s plate and have everyone read their poem at dinner. A variation of this is to put the poems on the table, take turns reading them and try to figure out which poem was meant for who. Another option is to have everyone print out a poem for each member of the family and put it in a pile on the table. Not only do you have to guess who the poem was for, but who selected that poem for that family member.
  • Do a round robin poem. You can pick a topic to focus on or not. Make it serious, make it silly, your choice. Determine how many rounds around the table you will go. One person starts off creating the first line of the poem. Person to the right (or left- this is pretty loosey goosey) adds the next line etc. until the poem is complete.
  • Make a dinner rule- whoever speaks during dinner must only speak in rhyme.
  • Pick a topic. Again, funny, silly or meaningful- you know your family. Each person around the table must create at least a three to four line poem based on the topic.
  • Create random word poems. You can do this with magnetic word tiles if you have them. If not, either you or your kids should cut out random words or phrases from a newspaper, magazine, printed page from the internet etc. The more you cut, the more interesting this will be. Put the words in a pile in the center of the dinner table. Everyone takes a large handful of words and must create a poem out of the words they picked.

These are just a few of the ways you can invite your family’s creative spirit to join you at the dinner table.  Let the conversation be lively, imaginative and full of laughs. Afterall, it’s a poetry party and you’ve just created a joyful celebration.