English Poetry
Year 07, Term 3
Poem: a piece of writing often having a rhyme
or rhythm which tells a story or
describes a feeling
Free Verse: poetry that does not have a regular
pattern of rhythm or rhyme
Literal Language: a way in which you express
yourself by saying exactly what
you mean
Characters: the people or animals that act like
people in poems that tell a story
Free Verse
 Written without rhyme or rhythm
 Is very conversational – sounds like someone talking with you
 Some do not use punctuation or capitalization, or other ways of
breaking the rules of grammar.
 A more modern type of poetry
 Use your “senses” when writing
I Dream’d in a Dream
I DREAM’D in a dream I saw a city
invincible to the attacks of the whole of
the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality
of robust love, it led to rest,
It was seen every hour n the actions of the
men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.
by Walt Whitman
A Snowy Day
A snowy day is white
A snowy day is snowmen and snow angels
A snowy day is sledding
A snowy day is cold
Cold
Wear your coat, hat, gloves and scarf.
See your breath.
My teeth shiver.
Listen to the wind blow.
The cold smells like frozen snow.
Pancake
Our class made a pancake
with finely-ground flour
and cheese and tomatoes
wrapped in it.
It had a crinkly edge
with lots of little holes
for the steam to escape.
Then Billy knocked the whole lot over
but our teacher rescued it
Then we cooked it under a flame
And put it in the fridge for later.
It was a real work of art.
It was our
milled, filled, frilled, drilled, spilled, grilled, chilled, skilled, pancake.
List Poetry
 A “list poem” gets its name from the fact that most of the
poem is made up of a long list of things.
 Two famous list poems are “Bleezer’s Ice Cream” by Jack
Prelutsky and “Sick” by Shel Silverstein. Another of my
favorite list poems is “An Everything Pizza” by Linda Knaus.
You will even find some of my list poems on
poetry4kids.com, such as “My Lunch” and “That Explains It!”
 These are not the only list poems, though. Many children’s
poets have written fun list poems, and you can even write
your own. This lesson will show you how.
That Explains It!
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I went to the doctor. He x-rayed my head.
He stared for a moment and here’s what he said.
“It looks like you’ve got a banana in there,
an apple, an orange, a peach, and a pear.
I also see something that looks like a shoe,
a plate of spaghetti, some fake doggy doo,
an airplane, an arrow, a barrel, a chair,
a salmon, a camera, some old underwear,
a penny, a pickle, a pencil, a pen,
a hairy canary, a hammer, a hen,
a whistle, a thistle, a missile, a duck,
an icicle, bicycle, tricycle, truck.
with all of the junk that you have in your head
it’s kind of amazing you got out of bed.
The good news, at least, is you shouldn’t feel pain.
From what I can see here you don’t have a brain.”
Writing a list poem
Notice that this poem begins with the four lines that set up the story,
and ends with four lines that make it even funnier.You can use the
same beginning and end, if you like, while putting your own list in
the middle.
For example, what would the doctor find in your head? Since this list
has rhymes at the end of each line, you can start with a few rhymes,
like this:
 house
 mouse
 cat
 hat
Once you’ve got a few rhymes, you can add as many items as you
want, like this:
“I also see something that looks like a house,
a monkey, a meerkat, a mink, and a mouse,
a laptop computer, a boat, and a cat,
an old pair of glasses, a coat, and a hat.”
Start writing your own list poem
 If you prefer to write your own list poem from scratch, one easy
way is to figure out what you’re going to make a list of. For
example, you could make a grocery list, a list of things in your
backpack, a list of your favorite sweets, a list of things you want
for Christmas, and so on.
 Let’s try it with a list of sweets. First let’s try to think of candies
and sweets that rhyme.
Writing your list poem
Now that you’ve got some rhymes, put them into a list, adding
a few more items to make the lines each about the same length:
 A half a dozen Nestle’s Crunch.
 A gallon of Hawaiian Punch.
 Some Cracker Jacks. A box of Dots.
 Some Pop Rocks and a jar of Zotz.
 Reese’s Pieces. Tootsie Pops.
 Hershey Kisses. Lemon drops.
 Candy Corn, Milk Duds, and Whoppers.
 Skittles, Snickers, and Gobstoppers.
Once your rhyming list is done, give it a beginning, an end, and a title and
you’re all done.
My Shopping List
 My mother said, “Go buy some bread,”
 but this is what I got instead.
 A half a dozen Nestle’s Crunch.
 A gallon of Hawaiian Punch.
 Some Cracker Jacks. A box of Dots.
 Some Pop Rocks and a jar of Zotz.
 Reese’s Pieces. Tootsie Pops.
 Hershey Kisses. Lemon drops.
 Candy Corn, Milk Duds, and Whoppers.
 Skittles, Snickers, and Gobstoppers.
 When mother needs things from the store
 She never sends me anymore.