Back to School Poems

Students and teachers everywhere, from grade school to college, are dreading the first day of school. Need a pick-me-up poem for those first-day butterflies? Worried about the not getting picked for the team? Got a secret crush and need to slip him or her a surefire note? Need a novel way to interest beach-burned brains of middle-school students in science? You’ll find solace, comfort, answers, and poems to woo anybody in these back-to-school lists of poems. 

FOR STUDENTS

Ten Poems to Get You Through Science Class This Year by Karen Glenn

Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Astronomy, and Geology. Science is all around us, and inside us. And sometimes we have to take science classes as well. These poems that engage the scientific world through the power of language.

Ten Poems to Send the Person You’re Crushing On by Becca Klaver

It’s hard to know what to say to that special someone. It’s good to lean on a poet sometimes, since they have a knack for these things. Check out these poems when you need an assist, and when you care enough to send the very best.

FOR TEACHERS

Ten Poems Students Love to Read Out Loud by Eileen Murphy

When someone reads a poem out loud, their voice helps to make that poem their own. These poems can demonstrate how voice and attitude can change how we understand poetry.

Ten Poems I Love to Teach by Eric Selinger

Some poems you love, and some you love to teach. What’s the difference? The teachable ones do half the work for you: the questions they raise and the pleasures they offer show that close reading is a pleasure, not a torture.

Curious about poetry, but don’t know where or how to begin? Check out Edward Hirsch’s How to Read a Poem: A Primer.