Text Box: Click on any of these pictures to hear the student read his or her poem… If you‘d like to download the file and play it on your computer’s media player, right click on the link, choose “save as” and choose a location to save it to your computer. Comments can be added to the site by emailing me at benjamin.vandenberg@morton709.org.

Listen to this...

Morton Junior High School

Being heard
Text Box: This is an alphabet poem. One way to write this style of poetry is to focus on a single letter and let various images come to mind. Jake has chosen the letter “Y” and sees it as a fork in the road.

Jake B
Text Box: This is Sophie’s bouts-rimes. This is a collaborative form that requires two people. One person makes a challenging list of rhyming words while the writer then must create a poem using the list. In this poem, Sophie sees a dirty man wearing rags. The old man in the shack is such a dirty rat.

Sophie K
Text Box: Old Man In a Shack by Text Box: This is another bouts-rimes poem. Unlike Sophie, Madeline has chosen to share a romantic poem. Her wonderful imagery is very warm and comforting and lend to her theme of love and love lost.

Madeline T
Text Box: My Silver Moon by Text Box: This is Taylor’s ballade. An old form of French poetry, the ballade has a varied rhyme scheme and a concluding stanza called an envoi. There is one line that is repeated in this poem. Here we hear about fleas upon a bed and a playful cat to add.

Taylor R
Text Box: A Cat And The Flea by Text Box: The ballad is one of the most popular forms of poetry. It’s alternating rhyme lends to rhythm and is often used by song writers. The ballad is often about loss and tragedy. Luke used this energy and chose to write about a great war from east to west.

Luke R
Text Box: Like The Locusts by Text Box: Randy wrote an acrostic poem here in which the phrase “My name is Randy” is written vertically. Each line of the poem begins with the next word in the phrase. In this poem, Randy is screaming to the universe trying struggling to make himself heard by everyone.

Randy C

¨ May I Yell by
Text Box: Krysta wrote a calligram hat is shaped like two musical notes. Music is a passion of Krysta’s and it shows not only through her personality but also through her poetry. Here she pays tribute to music and sees it as what makes the world go around.

Krysta H
Text Box: But I think It’s Music by Text Box: The ballad is one of the most popular forms of poetry. It’s alternating rhyme lends to rhythm and is often used by song writers. The ballad is often about loss and tragedy. Religion is very important for Adam and he chose to use it as a springboard for his ballad. Here Adam has chosen to write about savior from sin.

Adam V
Text Box: Sin by Text Box: In this alphabet poem Alex focuses on the letter “A” and sees a variety of images. From a park swing, to a cell phone tower, to a ride at everyone’s favorite Pumpkin Fest, Alex first sees the letter “A” as the beginning off his first name.

Alex G
Text Box: What Are You Big A by Text Box: Why Should You Go This Way by

Showcase Poem of the Week...

If you’d like me to leave a comment for any of these artists, please leave me an email at

benjamin.vandenberg@morton709.org

and I’ll be sure to add it to the site at the next scheduled update.