My whole life I’ve thought of poetry as a thing we just have to do in school. But, the past few weeks, my class has been learning about poetry, in our poetry unit. Now, I view poetry as a way I can express thoughts, in something thats not a basic boring paragraph. I can make anything I want into a poem, which made poetry not just something we have to do in school.

The main focus of this poetry unit was to expose us to many styles of poetry. Every day we would learn about a new technique, then be given a base topic (ours was worldview) that we could branch out on anyway we wanted. Something that was a little scary at first was that we would share our poetry to the class. If it was 5 people or the whole class, it was quite nerve racking because poems can become really person, or deep even if its a topic like worldview. Anyways, it was good to share our work because even if it was scary, our poems were being recognized for something deeper than just the words. We were being recognized for the meaning.

So, whats my thoughts on poetry? Something I do enjoy is writing, if its writing this blog post or just taking notes in science. When we started the poetry unit I just thought oh ok whatever, but as we actually started the poetry I found myself getting quote frustrated. Usually words just flow out of me, if its like right now writing this blog post or just talking to people. Anyways, I realized why words weren’t just flowing out like usual, or why I was unhappy with words that did. It’s because, I’m a perfectionist and when I have to do something like poetry, thats really unplanned and raw, It usually doesn’t really work out that well. I had to teach myself, that poetry isn’t right or wrong type of thing. After I realized that, my poems started to become more about how I really felt about the topic, more than it being obvious I just forced myself to use a word because it rhymed.

Ok so you might be confused about what are the random photos with poems on them are, let me explain. They were pages from my “book of poems” book! Other one of the goals for our poetry unit, was to be able to round up all the poems we wrote and make a book out of it. I really enjoyed this process, gathering my poems and making something I’m really proud of. Before I show you the book itself, I’m going to show you what I did to make it.

STEP #1

Get all the writing of the book done. Revise and edit poems and create opening paragraph.

STEP #2

Figure out plan and theme of book. I went with using photos Ive taken, with a simple font.

STEP #3

Gather photos and edit them. All the photos I used were from trips Ive gone on, or just things Ive seen overtime I thought deserved a photo. I made sure all the photos had a good quality also.

STEP #4

Add poems onto photos using Phonto. I used a simple font, so it wouldn’t take away from the poem.

STEP #5

Add pictures with poems layered on, onto Book Creator

STEP #6

Look through the book and do final touches!

STEP #7

Publish for the world to see.