RAP IT UP!

Sometimes poetry comes "rapped" in a package with a good disguise. Often when I visit schools I hear the kiddoes saying things like, "I don't like poems!" "Poetry is boring!" and other such things.

I have them do an exercise: Take your favorite song and write out the lyrics. Or tell us several lines from a song you like. Suddenly as they begin to recite the lyrics from a song it becomes apparent that they are rhyming and basically speaking a poem... Ah, the light goes on.

Most music is nothing more than rhyming lines or quadrants set to a beat. Then the assignment is to write a song rather than a poem and the stigma disappears...