When Debby Comes to Teach Poetry

She secretly opens the door like a ninja and tiptoes to a chair.
Ms. Humphrey says to turn your body and Debby is there!

28 children say "Good morning, Debby."
28 pairs of eyes stair at you,
looking eager to start.

We turn on our poem's eyes on the carpet and on our desk
and I feel happy.

I listen
and listen
and I sit and sit
and write and write
poems.

I feel like I m going into a new world
filled with letters to make a poem.

I put on my thinking cap and fly into poetry.

I have to unpack the backpack
and let the music go on forever
so I can find the unknown treasure.

I feel like blue birds singing and singing.

I burst with happiness like a pinata that has been whacked
and words fall on my head into a poem.

My pencil is like a paintbrush drawing across the paper
waiting to make a famous painting like Van Gogh.

I feel warmth spread through my body
as if someone is hugging me.

I feel as if the big bang happened in my heart
and subatomic particles fly with joy.

I start to write and whiz off with a burst of speed and excitement!

I feel like the first time I wore my sparkly shoes
and my words sparkle on the page.

I fill my heart and journal with poems.

I feel like a little mouse getting a year's supply of cheese.

We turn our poet's eyes
and quickly fly through the air
on our jet journals.

I feel she is a bird on a sunny day
flying around helping me make
my work better.

I think she is like a magic hat.
Her lesson is like taking something new
out of the magic hat.

When Debby comes to teach poetry. . .

I write about bubbles
and seastars
and jelly fish
whirling around in my head
waiting to swim
down
to
my
paper.

My hands shiver and my teeth chatter.
I just want to be a poem that I wrote.

A seed changes into a smiling flower,
a rock changes into a sparkling geode,
and my brain opens up to the wonderful world of poetry.

Firecrackers burst in my brain.
They sizzle.
When I sit down to write. . .
they explode!

It's Fourth of July and there's a parade
marching right across my paper.

I ride on my magic carpet over the Nile River
as the water sparkles like a thousand rubies.

A flower blooms,
a baby laughs,
and a sparking fairy flitters through the air.

When Debby comes to teach poetry
she brings
JOY!

by the young poets in room 214