Making Room for Poems
- Nerida K
- 10 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Honestly? I wasn't sure about poetry either.
April is National Poetry Month, which makes it a good time to ask: when did you last read a poem?
If you've ever felt like poetry was somehow not for you — too dense, too obscure, too much like homework — you're in very good company. Many of us leave school with the vague impression that poems are puzzles to be solved, and that we probably don't have the right tools.
But here's something worth knowing: poetry is also song lyrics. It's the rhyme your child chants while skipping. It's the phrase that lodges in your head after a hard day and won't let go. In that sense, you've been reading poetry your whole life.
There is something almost magical about rhyme — the way a pattern of sound can carry a feeling, or help a child learn to read. Rhythm and repetition aren't decoration. They're how humans have always remembered things that matter.
Poetry belongs to children and adults equally. A good poem can meet a six-year-old and a sixty-year-old in the same breath, and show each of them something different. That's part of what makes it remarkable: read the same poem twice, a year apart, and you may find you've become a different reader. Read it alongside someone else, and discover they've seen something you missed entirely.
This blog isn't about analysing poetry. It's about finding small, low-pressure ways to enjoy it yourself, and with the young readers in your world.
More than what we learned in school
Poetry is language paying attention to itself. Where prose moves forward to deliver information, a poem often lingers. On a single word, on the space between two ideas, on the sound of something as much as its meaning.
But poetry is also ancient and practical. Before writing, before books, human beings used rhythm and rhyme to remember important things. Stories, histories, instructions, laments. Song lyrics are poems. Nursery rhymes are poems. The chant at a sports game is, in its way, a poem.
There's no single definition that holds all of it. Some poems rhyme; many don't. Some are five words long; some fill entire books. What they share is an invitation to slow down, to read a little more carefully, and to notice what language can do when it's given room to breathe.
Check out this fun investigative video about how poetry can be almost anything.
What reading poems actually does for you
For children, poetry is one of the most natural paths into reading. Rhyme and rhythm build phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and play with the sounds of language, which is foundational to literacy. A poem is short enough to hold in memory, and fun enough to say out loud again and again.
For adults, the benefits are quieter but just as real. Reading poetry regularly builds patience with ambiguity and sharpens attention to language in ways that carry over into everything you read and write. It's also simply good for the mind to sit with something beautiful and not fully understood.
A poem is something you return to. Each time, you find something you didn't see before.
Shared reading across generations matters too. When a child and an adult read the same poem and compare what they see, both learn something. It models the idea that literature doesn't have one correct answer, and that your reading is yours.
Start small. There is no wrong door in.
The best way to get into poetry is through whichever entry point feels least intimidating. Here are a few to consider:
One short poem a day
The single most sustainable habit. Poetry in Voice's poem roulette serves you a new poem each visit, short enough for a coffee break, from many topics to keep you surprised: poetryinvoice.ca/roulette
A poetry collection or book works just as well. Open to any page and read whatever you find.
Hear it out loud
Poetry began as an oral tradition. It's often only in speaking (or hearing) a poem that its full effect lands. Watch young Canadian students bring poems to life: poetryinvoice.ca/binge/videos →
Recite one by heart
Choose a short poem you love and learn it. The physical act of memorising changes your relationship to the words in a way that silent reading doesn't.
Draw instead of write
Read a poem and respond to it visually. Sketch what it made you see, or feel, or think. No words required. This is especially good with younger children or anyone who finds writing intimidating.
Browse the poetry shelf
Visit your local library and spend twenty minutes doing nothing but reading first pages. You don't have to borrow anything, just see what's there.
Write your own
This one might feel the most intimidating. But writing even a messy poem changes how you read everyone else's. Start with five lines about one specific thing. No rhyming required.
Canadian poetry books for kids
Of the Sun: A Poem for the Land's First People
Written by Xelena González and Illustrated by Emily Kewageshig
You can borrow the book or eBook from Calgary Library.
Tree Song
Written by Tiffany Stone and illustrated by Holly Hatam
You can borrow the book from Calgary Library.
Be You!
By Peter H Reynolds
You can borrow the book or eBook from Calgary Library.
A few good places to keep exploring
Start anywhere. There is no wrong door in.
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