You Can Teach Children About War

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan, I found this article about how poets should/can/must write poetry about war. 100 Years of Poetry: The Magazine and War by Abigail Deutsch. Poetry has lovely editorials and essays -- this is more in the vein of a long lesson, primarily directed toward adults -- but with a little imagination, any adult lesson can be modified for children. Or for a different audience of adults. Or for you, just you, the poet in you. You the poet. You the one who wonders about how to/ if you should/ whether you must write about war.

This photo is from Andrew Sullivan's blog "The Dish," part of "The Daily Beast," which my husband reads, well, daily. I love photos of poetry manuscripts, the more crooked the handwriting on the page, the better.

I'm going to have to scan some of my student's war poems to post. There are some images available on the web, but not a lot.

I did find an article from the UK, posted in The Guardian earlier this year, about how to teach children about war by using war memorials and writing poetry in response to them. The article was written to correspond with Remembrance Sunday in Britain, but the principal applies in the US as well, or course. A visit to any of the memorials in Washington DC, or even in your local community, can inspire a poetry lesson. The Guardian has an amazing Teacher Network, in which I often find gems and inspiration.  This photo is from the aforementioned article.